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DOMESTIC NARRATIVE 



OF 



THE LIFE 



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SAMUEL ?ARD, M. D. LL.D. 

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS A.\D SUR- 
GEONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF 
NEW- YORK, &c. 

BY THE 

REV. JOHN M'VICKAR, A.M. 

H 

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND RHETORIC, COLUMBIA 
COLLEGE, NEW- YORK. 



Intus domique praestantior. 



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PUBLISHED AT THE LITERARY ROOMS, CORNER OF 
BROADWAY AND PINE-STREET. 



A. PAUL, PRINTER, 
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I 



THE following narrative was drawn up last summer, 
during the leisure of a short vacation from academical 
duties, with a view simply to preserve and arrange the 
fading recollections of a highly valued friendship. — It is 
now made public, partly from the interest taken in its sub- 
ject by a large circle of personal friends ; but chiefly from 
the hope that the delineation of Dr. Bard's character, as 
displayed in the events of his life, may lead others, and 
especially the young of that profession of which he was 
an ornament, to tread in his footsteps — to pursue worldly 
success by exertion, by perseverance, and by the consci- 
entious discharge of professional duty ; and to seek for 
happiness in the exercise of the benevolent and social 
affections, under the control and guidance of religion. 

For its minute details some apology may be considered 
requisite. The writer can only say, he was fearful of 
hurting the truth and simplicity of the picture by with- 
holding them ; and time or ability was wanting to analizo 
and select such a9 were alone important. 

Col. College. March 30, 1822, 




DOMESTIC NARRATIVE, &c. 



DR. Samuel Bard, the subject of the following memoir, 
was born in Philadelphia, April 1, 1742. On the side of 
both parents he was of French descent ; his paternal and 
maternal grandfathers preferring their faith to their coun- 
try, became exiles under the provisions of the revocation 
of the edict of Nantes— a decree which not only scattered 
throughout Protestant Europe the arts to which France 
was indebted for her prosperity, but also served to confirm, 
in the infant colonies of America, the spirit of civil and 
religious freedom, and to plant in them the ancestors of 
not a few of those who were destined afterward to main- 
tain it.* 

Peter Falconier, his mother's ancestor, found shelter 
for a while in the ranks of that triple alliance which the 
heartless ambition of Louis XIV. soon after that event, 
called into action. He was employed by the duke of Marl- 
borough in the commissariship. Fragments of his army 

* Among many others that might be mentioned as descended from the 
French refugees, are the families of Jay, Boudoin, Laurens, Pintard, 
and Boudinot 



accounts still remain in possession of the family, and 
give testimony to at least one excellence in the charac- 
ter of his much depreciated general. Emigrating soon 
afterward to America, in the capacity of private secretary 
to Lord Cornbury, governor of the province of New- 
York, and favourite cousin of Queen Anne, he was ap- 
pointed by him surveyor general. This situation pre- 
sented to him frequent opportunities of speculation, which 
he appears not to have neglected, as his name is to be 
found in most of the patents of that period Amid the 
hasty revolutions of property, which characterize our 
country, none of these acquisitions came down to his 
descendants, with the single exception of his patent right 
in the tract of land named in honour of the governor, 
Hyde Park, and of late best known as the peaceful scene 
of the closing years of the life of his grandson. 

His paternal grandfather, Peter Bard, on his arrival in 
America, immediately fixed himself on the banks of the 
Delaware, not far from Philadelphia, where he soon be- 
came attached to a neighbour, and a fellow exile. This 
lady was the daughter of Dr. Marmion, an English gentle- 
man, who, as appears from a manuscript journal kept by 
his wife, a woman of perhaps stronger sense than her hus- 
band, and equal piety, had abandoned England, his home, 
and his church, from the scruples of a misguided con- 
science. The sympathy of a similar fate seems here to 
have united those, whom, under other circumstances, dif- 
ference of nation and language would probably have re- 
pelled. 

From the marriage which ensued, sprung his immediate 
ancestor, Dr. John Bard, a man who will not be quickly 



forgotten where he was once known : in whom native taste 
and talent made up so fully for the deficiencies of early 
education, that he was the intimate friend and favourite 
companion of the few literary men of his period ; and in 
whose manners and conversation, frankness and courtly 
urbanity were so happily blended, that wherever he went 
he softened hostility, conciliated good will, and turned 
accidental acquaintance into personal and warm friend- 
ship. This latter talent was accidentally put to the proof 
in his removal from Philadelphia to the city of New- York, 
which took place in the year 1746, when his eldest son, 
the subject of this memoir, was in his 4th year. The 
anecdote was taken from the recital of one of the com- 
pany present. A convivial club of gentlemen had just 
met at a public house, which, in those days of greater 
hilarity, was the usual place of entertainment, when the 
landlord proposed adding to their table a young physician, 
just arrived from Philadelphia, whom he could not other- 
wise conveniently accommodate ; he was accordingly in- 
troduced, an unexpected, if not an unwelcome guest. 
Whatever may have been the prepossessions against him, 
they were not of long duration. His countenance was en- 
gaging, his manners courteous, his conversation attractive, 
but above all, his wit and good humour, to such a party, 
were irresistible. The evening and the night were added 
to the day : they parted, at length, mutually well pleased ; 
and in this festive circle Dr. Bard found his earliest pa- 
trons, and warmest, and most lasting friends. 

The education of his son commenced soon after. He 
was placed at the grammar school of Mr. Smith, a teach- 
er of considerable merit, if we may judge from the age 



8 

at which his pupil was fitted to enter on his collegiate 
course : perhaps a less dubious proof of it, is the grateful 
feeling, with which, in after life, he was remembered. Of 
precocity of talent no evidence appears ; the few anec- 
dotes, however, related of his early years, show the pe- 
culiar traits of his character to have been rather a feli- 
city of nature, than the tardy fruits of discipline. He was 
regarded at school " as a quick, industrious, and amiable 
child :" and of the opinion entertained of his ability at 
home, the different treatment of him and his brother, pre- 
scribed to the master by their observant mother, affords a 
simple, but strong proof. " If Peter," said she, " does not 
know his lesson, excuse him — if Sam, punish him, for he 
can learn at will." 

It would, however, be doing injustice to his own ac- 
knowledgment, to allow nothing to the careful discipline 
of a watchful father. 

In that first of moral virtues, Veracity, he attributed no 
small portion of the veneration with which he regarded 
it, to the severe lesson which once attended an early de- 
parture from it. To screen from punishment a servant 
boy of about his own age, who had broken his father's 
cane, he falsely took the blame upon himself; the deceit 
being discovered, his father praised his generosity, but 
punished his falsehood. His narration of this circumstance, 
seventy years after its occurrence, shows the strength and 
value of such early impressions. The lesson he then re- 
ceived, he transmitted to his children ; " any fault," he 
used to say, " may be excused, but want of truth." 

Nor was he less indebted to the tender care and valuable 
instructions of his mother, who planted early, and deep 



in his mind, the seeds of the truest wisdom. In a paper 
of religious reflections bearing date of his seventy-first 
year, he thus commemorates it. 

a I thank God for the tender and affectionate care of 
my dear mother, through the hazards of a sickly infancy, 
and for having impressed upon my mind, almost from the 
first dawnings of reason, an early sense of religion." 

When about the age of fourteen, his constitution, which 
from infancy had been feeble, received so severe a shock 
by a continued fever, that his father judged it prudent to 
remove him, for a time, both from the city and his stu- 
dies. He accordingly passed the ensuing summer at Col- 
denham, in the family of one of his father's most intimate 
friends, Cadwallader Colden, lieutenant governor of the 
province. This residence not only restored him to health, 
but filled his memory with pleasing recollections both of 
the society and studies to which it introduced him. In 
this family resided Miss Colden, well known as the cor- 
respondent of Linnaeus, and in whose honour the Colde- 
nia bears its name, in the Linnaean catalogue. With this 
lady, difFering in years, but united in tastes, Mr. Bard for- 
med an intimate friendship ; under her instruction he be- 
came skilful in botanizing, a pursuit which ever remained 
to him a favourite amusement, and which owed, perhaps, a 
part of its attractions to the pleasing associations with 
which it was originally connected, since, to the end of 
life, he never mentioned the name of his instructress with- 
out some expression of admiration or attachment. Nor 
was the obligation unreturned ; with a degree of native 
taste, which through life made him a delicate, if not a cri- 
tical judge of painting, he had united at this early age 

2 



10 

much practical skill, which enabled him to double the 
value of his companion's botanical researches by perpe- 
tuating their transient beauties or peculiarities. 

It is a source of much regret to the writer, that no let- 
ters remain to give individuality to these general recollec- 
tions. The impressions of delight from a science thus stu- 
died, which the interval of a long life could not efface from 
his memory, would in them have been a vivid picture. 

The delicate respect paid him on the following occa- 
sion, excited a feeling of gratitude proportioned rather to 
his own embarrassment, than the importance of the cir- 
cumstance. 

The first day of his arrival, Mr. Colden being absent, he 
was called upon at the dinner table to ask a blessing ; 
through confusion or forgetfulness he began the Lord's 
prayer: he had not proceeded far, before he was sen- 
sible of his mistake, and overwhelmed with confusion ; 
casting, however, a timid glance around, he became re- 
assured, by the composed looks of the ladies, his auditors, 
and so proceeded gravely to its close. To this mistake 
they never made, he said, the slightest allusion, until the 
intimacy of friendship justified a smile at his long and unu- 
sual grace. 

With renovated health, a mind enlarged by new studies, 
and manners formed by an early intercourse with the best 
society, young Mr. Bard returned to the severe duties of a 
collegiate life. At that time residence within the walls was 
not unusual in King's College, and Dr. John Bard, whose 
good taste led him to prize highly advantages he had not 
himself enjoyed, placed his son as private pupil in the fa- 
mily of the classical teacher, regarding the studies of that 



II 

department as the broad and firm basis of a refined and li- 
beral education. 

Dr. Leonard Cutting then filled that professorship with 
conspicuous ability ; an Eton scholar, and Cambridge gra- 
duate, his learning went, perhaps, beyond the existing 
demands of education in the country ; but it was not there- 
fore useless : the youthful mind imbibes learning not only 
in quantity but quality ; and thus the good taste of an ac- 
complished teacher becomes mixed up with the very rudi- 
ments of instruction. This is confirmed by the classical 
purity which marked many scholars of his school, and may 
serve to show that learned men are best even for the ele- 
ments of education. 

Be this as it may, in this case such was the result ; and 
Dr. Bard always spoke of his teacher not only in terms of 
affection and respect, but as one to whose refined taste and 
critical acuteness, he owed whatever he himself possessed 
of either. Nor was the degree of scholarship he commu- 
nicated contemptible. He applied, in full force, that great 
instrument of learning, repetition,* " line upon line," ma- 
king them thorough in all they learned, and by frequent 
perusal filling their memories with the language, and im- 
buing their feelings with the spirit of the great authors of 
antiquity. 

It is in this way only that the truly great advantages of 
classical learning are to be acquired, and by such students 
only, can its value be justly appreciated. Between a teach- 
er thus able to instruct, and a scholar thus willing to learn. 

* Of the power of repetition on this point, see the acknowledgments of 
Porson and Wyttenbach, who have both taught it as the secret of their 
nre-eminent success. 



12 

arose, what is not often the fruit of that connexion, an in- 
timate friendship, which was maintained during Mr. Bard's 
visit to Europe, by letters, of which there only now re- 
main sufficient to make his biographer regret their loss. 

The venerable Dr. Samuel Johnson then presided over 
this infant institution, with that tempered and benevolent 
firmness which marked his character in the earlier circum- 
stances of his life.* Of his successful labours no better 
proof can be desired than the high standing to which many 
of his pupils attained in after life : and, indeed, few of our 
colleges can boast of having sent forth, at so early a period 
of their existence, a greater proportion of able and emi- 
nent men. 

Industrious by nature, it was here that Dr. Bard laid the 
foundation of that habit of early rising which doubles the 
powers both of body and mind; a practice from which, in 
the remainder of his life, he never swerved, but always most 
earnestly recommended to the young around him, as the 
greatest source of health, of leisure, and enjoyment. What 
he enjoined upon others he practised himself; the ordina- 
ry excuses of want of rest or trifling indisposition never 
detained him after the earliest hour from the duties of 
the day. Daylight in summer, and an hour previous to 
it in winter, seldom found him in bed : it was thus in mid- 
dle life he found leisure, in the midst of a laborious prac- 
tice, to read, to write, to attend to the education of his 
children, his own improvement, the duties of a lecturer, 
and the claims of public and private benevolence ; and all 
this without hurry or confusion, and without excluding 

* For the particulars of the life of this excellent man, (written with 
great simplicity and interest,) see Chandler's " Life, &c." 



13 

himself from that social intercourse in which he alike de~> 
lighted and excelled. 

Boswell's vainly desired medicine that would enable him 
to rise out of bed with pleasure, our young student here 
found, in the salutary influence of early habit, and in what 
is perhaps necessary to its formation, the pressure of ne- 
cessity. Narrow domestic circumstances made many calls 
upon his time — his father's want of private pupils, or rather 
of apprentices, as they then were, forced upon him all the 
duties of that station, while the college exercises, multi- 
plied or enforced by his residence in a professor's family, 
of themselves furnished pretty full employment to a youth 
of sixteen years of age. The exertion, however, of per- 
forming them all, was well repaid ; it trained him to habits 
of strict economy of time, and a vigorous employment of it. 

In the choice of a profession, his father's wishes coinci- 
ded with his own ; while his opening talents were viewed 
by a partial parent in so strong a light, as to determine him 
to attempt educating him abroad : a plan much more con- 
sonant with his inclinations than with his means. 

The school of Edinburgh was at this time in the highest 
repute, or at least rapidly winning from that of Leyden the 
popularity the latter had so long enjoyed, from the high 
and well-earned reputation of Boerhaave, a name so de- 
servedly famous as, in the language of his great biographer, 
" to make all encomiums useless and vain." 

In the Scottish school was just then arising that constel- 
lation of talent, which afterward " shone forth with so 
mighty a lustre in the eyes of all Europe," and redeemed 
the national character from that reproach of barbarism, 
which had, with justice, rested upon it from the period of 



14 

^Buchanan's complaint, that he was born " solo et seculo 
inerudito." 

After much anxious preparation, a traveller at the early 
age of nineteen, young Mr, B. bade adieu to his native 
country, with a mind stored with such learning as the co- 
lonies then afforded, and a heart not untutored by parental 
instruction. 

The following is an extract from a letter of advice hand- 
ed to him at parting : 

New-York, Sept. 18th, 1761. 

With regard, my dear Sam, to your moral conduct, I do 
not flatter you, when I assure you I have the greatest con- 
fidence in your piety, prudence, and honour : still a severe 
test of all these is now approaching, since you are going to 
a part of the world where you will be surrounded with al- 
lurements. Your greatest security will lie in the first 
choice of your company. If, according to all your former 
conduct, you associate with men of sense and business, of 
sobriety and honour, and with ladies of character and fami- 
ly, your time will be most agreeably and honourably filled 
up between a course of business and of pure and refined 
pleasure. This will render all your correspondence with 
the world easy and delightful, and enlarge your sphere of 
valuable connexions and friends. On the contrary, should 
you suffer yourself to be captivated with the idle or the 
gay, so far as to give into their schemes of dissipation, you 
cannot tell how far the powers of your mind may become 
enervated, and by habit lose that manly firmness which is 
the principal guard to a generous, virtuous, and innocent 
life. Remember, my dear Sam, a maxim of Gay, 

" Plant virtue, and content's the fruit.'- 



15 

I do recommend to you, in a very particular manner, to 
attend upon the public worship of God constantly, at least 
every Sunday, which your piety, I hope, will naturally 
prompt you to ; and arm yourself against any arguments you 
may accidentally be exposed to, that have a design to les- 
sen the authority and excellency of the Christian religion. 
Be assured that it is not only more right in itself, but in- 
finitely more honourable and becoming the character of a 
gentleman, to appear an advocate on the side of religion, 
than to give the least countenance to the schemes of deism 
and infidelity. The greatest, the gravest, and the best of 
men, have always been on this side ; and these are the cha- 
racters I would advise you to emulate. 

I do sincerely beg of God to bless you in all your under- 
takings, and am, 

Your affectionate father, 

JOHN BARD. 

Parental anxiety was not diminished, when two months 
after his departure, the following letter was received from 
him. 

Bayonne Castle, Nov. 28, 1761. 
Honoured Sir, 

When I set out from New- York, I thought of 
nothing but the advantages I was about to reap, and the 
pleasures I should enjoy in Europe ; but we had not been 
long at sea, before I was convinced, by a very disagreeable 
accident, how vain are human calculations. Three weeks 
after I left you, being the 2d of November, we unfortu- 
nately fell into the hands of the enemy, and on the 24th 



16 

arrived at St. Jean De Luz, a small town on the coast, in 
the South of France, from whence I was carried to Ba- 
yonne Castle. My misfortune indeed would have been 
very grievous, had I not had the good fortune to meet with 
Capt. Waddle from New- York, and Capt. Falconer from 
Philadelphia, fellow prisoners, who have taken me into 
their room, and generously furnished me with money until 
I can hear from Mr. Neat, to whom I have written for 
credit and security to go into the country, and do not doubt 
but that, from the generosity with which he has treated the 
two above-mentioned gentlemen, I shall receive it by re- 
turn of post. I have likewise written to Dr. Franklin, to 
desire his interest in procuring my release. The uneasi- 
ness that this accident will naturally give you, I assure you, 
affects me more than the misfortune itself; it is true, con- 
finement is very disagreeable, but the castle is at present 
very healthy, the victuals are good in their kind, and we 
have a large court allowed us to walk in. 
Your affectionate son, 

SAMUEL BARD. 

A subsequent letter, which, as he observes, is not to be 
read by the commandant, gives a much less pleasing pic- 
ture of his situation. Pillaged at the time of his capture, 
robbed of what little remained to him on landing, by the 
military police, defrauded by the commandant of one half 
of the government allowance to prisoners, he was literally 
starving upon two and a half pence a day, when the kind- 
ness of his fellow prisoners in some measure relieved him. 
Had it not been for this accidental recognition, he would 
probably have fallen a sacrifice to the police of a French 



17 

prison, as his sufferings had thrown him into a severe ill- 
ness ; a circumstance which, with peculiar tenderness, he 
withheld from the knowledge of his parents until his res- 
toration to both health and liberty. 

The same thoughtful filial affection appears in the fol- 
lowing extract from a third letter which remains of his 
correspondence from his prison. 

" As my present situation is such, that it affords nothing 
new or agreeable to acquaint you with, I should not think 
it worth while to be constantly renewing your uneasiness, 
by putting you in mind of my unhappy situation, did I not 
know that being assured of my health gives you a satis- 
faction which I think would be a breach of duty in me to 
deprive you of." 

The means of release to which he trusted not operating 
as speedily as he had hoped, his anxiety to reach the 
scene of his labours led him to attempt an escape by the 
connivance of one of the guard. This rash measure might 
have added to the severity of his confinement, had it not 
been speedily terminated, through the intervention of pow- 
erful influence. — With Dr. Franklin, who then resided in 
London as agent for several of the Colonies, Dr. John 
Bard, had early formed a warm and intimate friendship : 
while fellow-citizens of Philadelphia, they were both mem- 
bers of a select club, in which mirth and literature were 
not unhappily combined ; and for which the shrewdness of 
Franklin, and the convivial talents of Dr. Bard, formed no 
contemptible basis. Of these <rvt*zru(nab, many traditionary 
anecdotes are preserved in Dr. Bard's family. The in- 
sertion of the following may be pardoned as the jeu d'es- 
prit of an extraordinary man ; as superadding to the cha- 

3 



18 

racter of the acute philosopher and wily politician, that of 
the boon companion and poet. 

Some exception being jocularly taken at one of their 
suppers, that married men should sing the praises of poet's 
mistresses, Dr. Bard received the ensuing morning, at 
breakfast, the following song from Dr. Franklin, with a 
request that he would be ready with it by their next meet- 
ing. 

Of your Chloes and Phillises poets may pi*ate, 

I sing of my dear country Joan ; 
These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, 

Blest day that I made her my own ! 

My dear friends, &c. 

Not a word of her face, her shape, or her air, 

Or of flames, or of darts, you shall hear ; 
I beauty admire, but His virtue I prize, 

That fades not in seventy year. 

Am I loaded with care, she takes off a large share, 

That the burden ne'er makes me to reel ; 
Does good fortune arrive, the joy of my wife, 

Quite doubles the pleasure I feel. 

She defends my good name, e'en where I'm to blame, 

Friend as firm as to man e'er was given ; 
Her compassionate breast feels for all the distrest, 

Which draws down more blessings from Heaven. 

In peace and good order my household she guides, 

Right careful to save what I gain ; 
And cheerfully spends and smiles on the friends, 

I've the pleasure to entertain. 



19 

In health a companion delightful and dear, 

Still easy, engaging, and free ; 
In sickness no worse than the carefullest nurse. 

As tender as tender can be. 

Some faults have we all, and so has my Joan, 

But then they're exceedingly small ; 
And now Pve grown us'd to them, so like my own, 

That I scarcely perceive them at all. 

Were the fairest young princess, with millions in purse, 

To be had in exchange for my own ; 
She could not make a better wife, might make a worse, 

So I'll stick to my dearest old Joan. 

My dear friends, &c. 

That years, and separation did not weaken this friend- 
ship, the following letter proves, which, though of a much 
teter date, may be here introduced as showing the grounds 
of young Mr. Bard's confidence in Dr. Franklin's good of- 
fices. It is, unfortunately, the only remnant of a frequent 
correspondence. 

Philadelphia, Nov. 14, 1785. 
My Dear Friends, 

I received your kind letter, which gave me 
great pleasure, as it informed me of your welfare. Your 
friendly congratulations are very obliging : I had on my 
return, as you observe, some right to expect repose ; and 
it was my intention to avoid all public business : but 1 have 
not firmness enough to resist the unanimous desire of my 
country folks, and I find myself harnessed again in the ser- 
vice for another year. They engrossed the prime of my 



20 

life, they have eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to 
pick my bones. You are right in supposing that I interest 
myself in every thing that affects you and yours. Sym- 
pathizing in your afflictions, and rejoicing in your felicities, 
for our friendship is ancient, and was never obscured by 
the least cloud. I thank you for your civilities to my 
grandson, and am ever, with sincere, and great esteem 
and regard, my dear friends 

Yours most affectionately, 

B. FRANKLIN. 
Dr. & Mrs. Bard. 



Through these safer means Mr. Bard was soon enabled 
to exchange the gloom of a prison for the freshness and 
freedom of the country ; which he enjoyed in a short ex- 
cursion through the neighbouring province, being unwil- 
ling to have been five months a resident in France, with 
scarcely the ability of saying that he had seen it. 

In company with Miss De Visme, a fellow-passenger, 
and one who had been placed, in some degree, under his 
eare, in returning to her English friends, he took passage 
in a cartel for Plymouth. This gratifying intelligence he 
conveyed to his anxious parents, in the following letter. 

London, April 27, 1762. 
Honoured Parents, 

It is with the greatest joy I acquaint you 
with my deliverance from the French prison, and safe ar- 
rival at London. Mr. Neat has greatly added to my hap- 
piness ; not only by delivering to me many letters which 



2J 

acquainted me with your health, and that of the family ; 
but by a most paternal kindness, which he still continues 
to show me. I defer delivering my letters, until I am in 
a more proper condition to appear before the gentlemen 
to whose notice I am recommended. With regard to my 
picture, I hardly think I can afford it ; for my imprison- 
ment has not only been attended with much trouble and 
uneasiness, but likewise with much expense. 

But although I cannot charge myself with any unneces- 
sary extravagance, except it was purchasing a German 
flute, and employing a teacher, in order to pass my time 
with some little content in the prison, I have, during my 
stay in France, together with my expenses on my voyage 
and journey from Plymouth, spent near forty pounds ster- 
ling. I am afraid you will think this a very extravagant 
sum ; but I do assure you that there was not twenty shillings, 
(except my flute,) which I spent unnecessarily. I had al- 
most forgot to tell you that I have been so fortunate as to 
bring Miss De Visme with me, by which I have made her 
grandfather very happy. 

I long with much impatience to hear from you : for al- 
though I have many letters, there is none of so late a date 
as I could wish. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Upon the great object of his visit he now entered, with 
that diligence and zeal, which, through life, marked his 
character, heightened in this case by an anxious desire to 
repay, by his improvement, an expense he was conscious his 
father could but ill afford, that on his return he might be. 



V 



22 

as he himself expresses it, " a welcome guest." During 
the whole of his five years residence abroad, his correspon- 
dence with his family was full and frequent. Of the op- 
portunity thus afforded of telling his story in his own 
words, I shall gladly avail myself. They are the letters of 
a young, and perhaps unexperienced mind; but they be- 
speak both good sense and warm feeling, and occasionally 
contain some notices of the Scotch school in the period of 
its highest celebrity, which may not be without interest. 

London, June 1 2th, 1 762. 

Honoured Sir, 

Dr. Fothergill desires his compliments, and says 
that he received your letter, which he laid before the Me- 
dical Society, that it met with their approbation, and has 
been published by them ; he answered it, and has sent you 
a printed copy : he has behaved to me with the greatest po- 
liteness. As Dr. Hunter intends to read lectures on anato- 
my this winter, I should be glad to know, as it makes a dif- 
ference of sixteen pounds, whether you would have me at- 
tend him as a dissecting pupil, or only his lectures — in this 
Dr. Jones's advice may be of service. Enclosed I send you 
an account of my expenses. I am sorry to acquaint you 
that I am like to lose the seven pounds you see charged to 
Mr. Barton, and am afraid you in turn will charge me with 
being too ready to lend it ; but when you have read the cir- 
cumstances, which I will candidly relate, I dare say you 
will excuse me. 

This Mr. Barton is a gentleman who sailed with me 
from New- York, nephew to an English factor of Bordeaux, 
who supplied him with money whilst in France, and pro- 



23 

cured hiffi his liberty, and by whose interest this young 
gentleman procured me mine ; had it not been for his 
friendship and assistance, I might have staid this twelve- 
month in France, which would have cost me much more. 
When we left Bayonne he was, (as both he and I thought,) 
by accident deprived of a supply : as I had a letter upon 
Spain, I could do no less than lend him as much as would 
carry him to London. Since our arrival here, his uncle, 
upon whom he depended, has refused to supply him ; this 
has driven him to great distress : but he has now got a birth 
on board of a large privateer, from which, if he ever re- 
turns, I am sure he will gratefully repay me ; if not, I trust 
you will excuse my supplying the necessities of my bene- 
factor. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Of the services rendered to him by his fellow prisoner, 
either his gratitude or his ignorance magnified the impor- 
tance. His deliverance he owed, as appears from other 
sources, to the influence of Dr. Franklin, through the com- 
mercial agency of Mr. Neat : nor is it likely that this young 
man's political influence could be great, when his credit 
was so small. Indeed Dr. Franklin himself attributed it to 
his own interference, as appears by a subsequent letter, 
wherein Mr. Bard says, " Dr. Franklin, on the receipt of 
my letter, immediately wrote to France to procure my re- 
lease, and had actually accomplished it, (soon after I had 
received that favour from Mr. Barton) as I saw by a letter 
he showed me when I waited on him. to thank him for his 
civilities." 



24 

In answer to a letter of his father's, wherein he advises 
him immediately on his arrival to consult his friend Dr. 
Fothergill, the most eminent practitioner then in London, 
he writes as follows : 

London, June 22, 1762. 
Honoured Sir, 

I have received yours of the first of May, in 
which you desire me to consult Dr. Fothergill with regard 
to the plan of my education. This I did as soon as I ar- 
rived, when both he and Dr. Makenzie advised me to 
spend the next winter in London. Their reasons were, 
that they thought it best to lay a foundation by practice 
before I entered upon theory. However, if you do not ap- 
prove of this scheme, let me know by the first opportunity, 
and perhaps it may arrive in time for me to get to Edin- 
burgh before the courses begin. My having entered the 
Hospital, and Dr. Makenzie's lectures, need be no obstacle, 
as I am with both a perpetual pupil, and may go and re- 
turn when I please. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Whether or not the principle here laid down by these 
eminent men, fixed or only accorded with the bent of Mr. 
Bard's mind, may not be easy to say ; but it evidently form- 
ed a leading trait in his subsequent professional character. 
Regarding the healing art as an experimental science, he 
looked into it rather for facts than opinions, and in prac- 
tice trusted principally for success to the course prescribed 
by an enlightened experience : he consequently viewed. 



25 

with caution, the specious claims of modern theory, and of- 
ten expressed the fear that this branch of philosophy was 
swerving too much from the rigid principles of an induc- 
tive science. 

The proposed plan, however, of a London residence, 
was altered, by the receipt of a letter from his father, urg- 
ing his speedy removal to Edinburgh, to which the follow- 
ing appears to be the answer, 

London, July 9th. 1762. 

Honoured Sir, 

Dr. Fothergill, whom I saw this morning, after 
reading your letter, advises me to go down about the be- 
ginning of September, which is a month before the colleges 
begin : this month he would have me employ in growing 
familiar with the Scotch pronunciation of Latin, and apply 
myself this winter to the lectures upon Anatomy, Chemis- 
try, and the Materia Medica, to return in the spring to 
London, and attend the hospital again. 

I spent last evening at Mr. Neat's ; if it were not for his 
good family, I know not what I should do, for of all places 
I ever was in, I never found one so unsocial as London. 
Nothing is minded here but business ; every one you meet 
is in a hurry, and if you do not walk with circumspection, 
you run the risk of being shoved into the gutter. I assure 
you I am most heartily tired of it, and sincerely wish, (but 
it is a wish I must not now indulge,) that the happy time 
were come when 1 shall again see you all ; however, the 
hope that it will come, keeps up my spirits, and encou- 
rages me to apply with industry to my studies, that when- 

4 



26 

ever I do return, 1 may be a welcome guest ; until which 
longed for time believe me to be, &c. 

S. B. 

The last of his letters dated from London, is as follows : 
to the cousin of whom he speaks, he was warmly attached. 
His letters, some of which the course of this narrative may 
introduce, display a romantic and rather desponding mind, 
to which some interest is given by misfortune and an early 
fate. 

London, August lAth, 1762. 
Honoured Parents, 

I was in great hopes of having a letter by the 
packet 5 but the French, who seem to be my particular 
enemies, as well as those of my country, have again disap- 
pointed me. In a letter by Captain Chambers, I acquaint- 
ed you that I intended going to Edinburgh the beginning 
of next month. I was last week with Dr. Fothergill to de- 
sire a letter to some of the professors, and he has promised 
me one to Dr. Monro, professor of anatomy ; and Drs. 
Russel and Mackenzie have likewise offered me letters to 
some of their friends. Dr. Fothergill advises me to spend 
one hour a d^ at the Latin, and another at the French, 
under proper masters, to whom he will recommend me. 
For this gentleman's friendship I am obliged to Dr. Jones, 
for which please to return him my thanks. It is now al- 
most a twelvemonth since I left New- York, and I have ne- 
ver once had the pleasure of a line from my cousin Sam, 
which I own gives me a good deal of uneasiness, for I once 



27 

proposed to myself a great deal of satisfaction from his 
correspondence. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

This concludes the period of Mr. Bard's first visit to 
London, which was spent by him not merely in arrange- 
ments for his medical studies, but in the actual and diligent 
prosecution of them. His letters of introduction to the ca- 
pital, were of the first character. In the pillage of his 
baggage, some of them, he states, were lost ; the most im- 
portant, however, of his professional ones must have been 
preserved, as he became immediately introduced to Drs. 
Fothergill, Hunter, Smith, the surgeon of St. Thomas's, 
and Mackenzie, and through him to Cherrinton, the sur- 
geon of Brown's hospital. Under the guidance of such 
men he could hardly go wrong. The course he pursued 
will be best given in his own words. 

"Upon my arrival in London, after putting myself in a 
proper dress, I waited upon Dr. Fothergill, Hunter, &c. 
&c. and by their advice immediately entered St. Tho- 
mas's hospital as a physician's pupil, under Dr. Russel, 
and whilst attending him, read Lewis's Materia Medica 
on the medicines made use of, and Sydenham and Hux- 
ham on the various disorders that offered themselves to 
my observation. I constantly attended all the operations 
of both St. Thomas's and Guy's hospitals. I attended 
also Makenzie's lectures, and as he proceeded much in 
the order of Smellie, I read him in the course of the day 
on the subjects the Dr. had lectured upon in the morn- 
ing." 



28 

The gentleman under whose peculiar instruction he 
placed himself was Dr. Alexander Russell, an able and ami- 
able man, well known by his various communications to 
the Royal Society, and his History of Aleppo, where, for 
many years, he had practised with great medical repu- 
tation, under the patronage of the Turkish Pacha, and 
whence he introduced into England, on his return, several 
new and valuable plants ; among others the true scammo- 
ny, and the arbutus andrachne of our gardens. 

His associates in the hospital were Given, the translator 
of Celsus ; Else, author of a work upon Hydrocele ; and 
the still higher name of Akenside, who, though then in 
the plentitude of his poetical fame, and living upon the pa- 
tronage it brought him, was by no means negligent of his 
medical reputation, or of his duties as a lecturer. 

Of the two Hunters, it does not clearly appear which was 
the friend who so strongly interested himself in the success 
of the young stranger. Both were engaged at this time in 
anatomical lectures: it seems most probable, however, 
that it was the elder brother, William, the early compa- 
nion and partner of Cullen, since the circumstances rela- 
ted by Dr. B. accord better with that suavity of manners, 
for which he was remarkable, than with the morbid irrita- 
bility of temper which both embittered and shortened* the 
life of his brother. 

Of Dr. Fothergill every American had reason to speak 
well ; that general benevolence of character, which drew 
from Franklin the encomium of" one of the best of men," 

* Dr. John Hunter died suddenly of a spasmodic affection of the heart, 
induced by some trivial causes of irritation, while going the rounds in St. 
George's hospital in 1793. 



29 

was exerted peculiarly in favour of the American colonies 
and their inhabitants. Hardly a scheme of benevolence 
or literary improvement, in regard of them, but received 
his aid and patronage. Among other services little known, 
were his exertions for King's College, New- York, in fur- 
nishing it both with funds and teachers, it being through 
his inquiries and recommendation, at this very period, that 
Dr. Cooper, its president, was sent out under the patron- 
age of the archbishop of Canterbury. 

Of Dr. B.'s general letters of introduction, scarce any 
mention is made : as his studies left him little leisure for so- 
ciety, so did his warm and youthful feelings, fresh from the 
attachments of home, indispose him to enjoy the formal at- 
tentions which, in general, are their only result : but he 
was not aware, as he himself afterwards acknowledges, of 
the necessary difference between the civilities of the com- 
mercial metropolis of the world, where the number and 
nature of such introductions require the guard of cautious 
prudence, and the free-hearted intercourse of his native 
town. But in this complaint of coldness, natural reserve 
had a part. " Indeed," says he, " I believe I have been 
somewhat to blame myself, by my not knowing the cus- 
tom of the country, which is not to be quite so frank to 
strangers as we are in America ; and had I possessed a lit- 
tle more assurance, and paid people the compliment of be- 
lieving they spoke the truth, when by their manner they 
did not seem to intend I should, it might have been of ser- 
vice to me." 

This implied censure, did not, however, extend to all 
his acquaintance : in the family of Mr. Board, the chemist 
he found almost a second home. Of this gentleman he 



30 

thus speaks, in one of his letters about this period : " Al- 
though I mention him last, he is one to whom I am very 
much indebted, — he is a cousin of Mr. Kempe, and par- 
takes of many of that gentleman's amiable and good qua- 
lities ; he not only invited me to his own house, but also 
introduced me to some very agreeable friends ; and when 
unwell, came to my lodgings, where, thinking I had not so 
good care taken of me as I ought to have, made me go 
home with him, detaining me for above a week, and 
nursing me as tenderly as if I had been his brother. In 
short, I do not know how to thank him enough, and wish 
I had any way to return the favour." 

The feelings of attachmfe&t, in this intimacy, appear to 
have been mutual : on his subsequent visit to London, this 
gentleman's house became his home ; and, after a lapse of 
sixty-five years of absence and silence, it was remember- 
ed by both with that mixed feeling of melancholy delight, 
which a long and chequered life throws over the recollec- 
tions of early and virtuous friendship. 

In a letter to a third person, Mr. Board, having spoken 
of " his old valued friend, Dr. Bard, whom he still holds 
in kind recollection," and of a contest among the mem- 
bers of his family for the possession of a minature like- 
ness he had left of himself, on his departure for Ameri- 
ca," this letter was transmitted to Dr. Bard, and called 
forth in reply, the following remembrance : — 

" Mr. Board's letter to Mrs. Church, has brought to my 
recollection several of the most valuable friends of my 
youth •, and many of the happiest scenes of my residence 
in London ; all which I now recollect, with great pleasure 
and gratitude." 



31 

From such a home our young traveller could not estrange 
himself, without that regret of separation which forms no 
inconsiderable drawback to the pleasure of foreign tra- 
vel. These feelings were not, perhaps, dissipated, when 
he wrote his first letter from Edinburgh, which begins with 
this home-sick sentence. " I have met with so many dis- 
agreeable rubs since I left New- York, that though I have, 
of necessity, learned some resignation and patience, yet, 
if Providence do but once more restore me to the glad 
embraces of my dear parents, I will for ever bless the day, 
and count the joy of that meeting a sufficient recompense 
for the pain of all the past." 

Leaving London on the first of September, by the stage 
coach, we find him, with the tardy pace of the travelling 
of those days, advanced on the fifth but as far as New- 
Castle upon Tyne : nor that without the accident of an 
overthrow, as appears by a short letter to his parents, 
from that place. 

Among the letters which cheered his arrival at Edin- 
burgh, was the following from his father ; an appropriate, 
if not a needful warning to him on his entrance to a se- 
cond metropolis. 

New-York, August 10, 1762. 
My Dear Son, 

There are two things in your residence 
abroad I have much at heart : first, that you should ac- 
quire the character of an ingenious and skilful physician ; 
and secondly, that of an easy, well-bred gentleman. The 
first is to be attained by a close attention upon the duties 
assigned you by the professors, and a careful investigation 



32 

of the principles upon which the science you are studying 
is founded : the other is by a cheerful, affable behaviour, to 
secure the friendship of your teachers and equals, and by 
relaxing your mind in the company and conversation of 
the polite part of society — always, as you have heretofore 
done, cultivating an acquaintance with those whose abili- 
ties and dispositions will improve, as well as entertain you. 
As an encouragement to your industry and perseverance. 
I cannot help informing you, that if you do your part, and 
return to America with the honours of the university, and 
the approbation of your respective teachers, I may assure 
you, that no young man can possibly begin business under 
greater advantages. I shall stay in the city no longer 
than is necessary to effect your establishment, and then 
retire, and leave you in possession of all the business your 
own merit, and my interest, can procure. Above all 
things, my dear son, suffer not yourself, by any company 
or example, to depart, either in your conversation or prac- 
tice, from the highest reverence to God, and your reli- 
gion : always remembering, that a rational and becoming 
view of these duties is the most likely means of influen- 
cing your moral conduct, and is, in truth, the brightest in- 
gredient in a gentleman's character, naturally producing 
not only that decent, chaste, and polite style, in common 
conversation, so essentially necessary in one of your pro- 
fession ; but also laying the foundation of a virtuous and 
honourable life. 

Your affectionate father, 

J. B. 



33 

An interval of some weeks after his arrival afforded him 
an opportunity of paying a visit to St. Andrew's, and also 
of forming some general acquaintance with his teachers, 
previous to attending their lectures. The deficiencies of 
his early collegiate education were also to be supplied ; 
and to this task he applied himself on his return from St. 
Andrew's with characteristic zeal, "setting himself to it," 
as he terms it, " in good earnest." The account of his 
visit to the northern university, is thus given by himself. 

Edinburgh, Sept. 26*A, 1762. 
Honoured Sir, 

I wrote you from New-Castle, about three 
weeks ago, informing you of my arrival there on my way 
to Edinburgh, since which I have been to St. Andrew's. 
Captain Donaldson received and treated me with the 
greatest friendship ; he was so good as to introduce me 
to the Principal, and many of the professors of the col- 
leges, several of whom have been of service to me, by 
giving me letters to men of eminence in the profession at 
this place. He introduced me also to Lord Buchan's 
family. Lord Cardross, his eldest son, spent the evening 
with me, and gave me letters to Doctors Hope and Ru- 
therford, professors of this college. As it will be above 
a month before the colleges set down, I have, by the ad- 
vice of Dr. Cullen, applied myself to the mathematics, 
with a private tutor. My situation here is as agreeable as 
absence from home will permit, and I seem to want no- 
thing but letters from you, to make me as happy as I can 
expect to be, until my return. I have taken a small room, 
find my own breakfast and supper, and dine at an ordinary, 

5 



34 

with several very agreeable young men, all students, among 
whom is a son of Colonel Martin, of Hempstead, and a Mr. 
Morgan, from Philadelphia, a person of distinguished me- 
rit, who knew our family, and has taken particular notice 
of me ; and as I can with more freedom apply to him in 
any trivial matter, than to a professor, I promise myself 
much advantage from his friendship. The war is now, I 
hope, almost at an end, a consideration which affords me 
no small pleasure, as I hope I shall now hear from you of- 
tener than hitherto, and shall no longer have the mortifi- 
cation of losing my letters after you have taken the trou- 
ble to write them, and I been, perhaps, for a month, in 
the most eager expectation ; a sensation which, although 
grounded upon pleasure in prospect, 1 have experienced, 
has in it a far greater proportion of pain. I hope I shall 
soon hear from you ; a letter at this time would give me 
new spirits — make me apply with more alacrity to my bu- 
siness, and add greatly to the happiness of 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Upon the opening of the college session, he threw aside 
all lighter avocations and collateral studies, except natural 
philosophy, which was his favourite relaxation, devoting 
himself to anatomy and chemistry, those two fundamental 
branches of his profession, as they give the knowledge 
of the materials with which it works, and the subject upon 
which it is to operate. Some account of the manner in 
which these courses were conducted, by the able men who 
then presided over them, will be found in the following 
letters. 



35 



Edinburgh* Dec* btJu 1762. 
Honoured Parents. 

I attend three classes. Drs. Cullen. Monro. 
and Ferguson. Cullen. professor of chemistry, at first 
gave us the history of his art from the earliest time, main- 
taining it. contrary to the opinion of Boerhaave, and most 
other chemical writers, to have been first cultivated 
amongst the Arabians : he next proceeded to give an ac- 
count of its objects, with very accurate definitions of the 
terms employed. Id this his principal intention is to make 
us acquainted with the language of the science ; he is now 
almost done with this part, and goes on next to its opera- 
tions : he is a very good speaker, and very eminent in his 
profession ; lectures in English, in a clear, nervous style. 
and with a natural strong tone of voice. He has a new 
way of examining his pupils in his lecture room : and as I 
was recommended to his notice, he did me the honour, this 
winter, to commence with me ; from which I would as lieve 
have been excused, for I was not a little confused to be thus 
questioned before above a hundred students, who all had 
their eyes fixed upon me. to hear my answers : however, I 
came off with flying colours. Monro, professor of anatomy. 
has finished the history of his branch, and advanced a little 
in the osteology ; he is a very good demonstrator, and a 
pretty orator. I have procured a scull and a few old bones, 
in order to ground myself well in this fundamental part of 
anatomy. He mixes up many good practical remarks in 
his lectures, and with him we read the older Monro's os- 
teology. Professor Ferguson has now gone through his 
doctrine of attraction and repulsion, which he finished yes- 



36 

terday, with an account of the magnet* He illustrates his 
lectures with a variety of very entertaining experiments ; 
they are very agreeable, and with him we read the New- 
tonian philosophy. When I first began to attend these 
gentlemen, I found much difficulty in taking notes, but I 
have now by practice conquered it, and can carry off very 
near the whole substance of the lecture, so that before I 
have the happiness of seeing you, I shall have systems of 
the different parts of the course in my own writing. 

Affectionately yours, 

S. B. 

The application of his time, as given by himself, affords 
no weak proof of firmness of mind. Young and ardent, 
away from home, and surrounded by the temptations of a 
large metropolis, it affords an honourable example of the 
conscientious performance of duty, and a lesson, not with- 
out its use, to those who may be similarly circumstanced. 

"My day, in general," says he, "is thus spent: from 
seven to half after ten I am at present employed in the ma- 
thematics, which will soon, however, be changed for pro- 
fessional reading and the examination of my notes ; I then 
dress, and am by eleven at college, attending professor 
Ferguson until twelve ; from that hour until one, at the 
hospital ; from one till two, with Dr. Cullen ; from two to 
three, I allow to dinner ; from three to four, with Monro 
in anatomy ; from four to five, or half an hour after, I ge- 
nerally spend at my flute and taking tea, either in a friend's 
room, or with a friend in my own : after this I retire to my 
study, and spend from that time until eleven o'clock, in 
connecting my notes, and in general reading. This is the 



37 

plan I have set down to myself, and am resolved to stick 
close to it, for the winter at least. In the summer I shall 
not be so busy, but have a little time, (if I do not go to 
London,) to amuse myself with botany, and seeing the 
country ; then you shall have as long letters as you please 
from me, for there is nothing I take more pleasure in than 
writing to you, unless it be in hearing from you, for in 
either of these, especially the last, I cannot help imagining 
myself conversing with you. I am very much obliged," 
he goes on to add, " by the good opinion my New- York 
friends entertain of me, and hope I shall never, by any ne- 
gligence of mine, disappoint them. If liking a profession be 
a good omen of proficiency, I can assure you I begin to be 
most highly delighted with mine ; I daily discover so many 
beauties in it, that I am at a loss which first to investigate ; 
and were it not for the regular plan I have laid down, 
should be bewildered and lost in the labyrinth." 

To a zeal thus grounded in love, no labours seemed ar- 
duous, nor any aims too lofty to be attempted. This is 
evinced in the following letter, in which he suggests, at 
that early day, the establishment of a medical school in 
the city of New- York ; a plan which, in his riper years, 
he effected, and to which his grey hairs brought reve- 
rence. 

Edinburgh, Dec. 29th, 1762. 
Honoured Sir, 

You no doubt have heard that Dr. Shippen 
has opened an anatomical class in Philadelphia ; his cha- 
racter here as an anatomist is very good, and no doubt he 
appears equally so in America. You perhaps are not ac- 



38 

quainted with the whole of that scheme ; it is not to stop 
with anatomy, but to found, under the patronage of Dr. 
Fothergill, a medical college in that place : Mr. Morgan, 
who is to graduate next spring, and will be over in the fall, 
intends to lecture upon the theory and practice of physic, 
and is equal to the undertaking. I wish, with all my heart, 
they were at New^York, that I might have a share amongst 
them, and assist in founding the first medical college in 
America. I do not want ambition to prompt me to an un- 
dertaking of this kind ; and I have had some conversation 
with my friend, Mr. Martin, respecting it, but I am afraid 
that the Philadelphians, who will have the start of us by 
several years, will be a great obstacle ; and another almost 
insurmountable one is, the religious and party feeling 
which exists in New- York ; for if such a thing was to be 
undertaken, it ought to be in conjunction with the college. 
This perhaps you may think a wild scheme ; but it is at least 
an innocent one, and can do no hurt to have such a thing 
in view. I should be glad to have your sentiments upon 
it, and if you see Dr. Johnson, it might not be amiss to 
mention it to him. I own I feel a little jealous of the Phi- 
ladelphians, and should be glad to see the college of New- 
York at least upon an equality with theirs. I am not 
alone ; Mr. Martin, who is a very ingenious young man, 
will be returning about the same time ; and I am told my 
old schoolmate, Roberts, is coming here, he may perhaps 
make a third : Mr. Smith, I believe, will not come into it. 
I have now said enough upon this subject, I will therefore 
leave you to think of it. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 



39 

The answer of his father to this suggestion, marks the 
judgment of a more experienced mind, and connects with 
his name the credit of originally projecting the hospital of 
New- York, a design which his son subsequently effected ; 
an institution so creditable to its author, that we may di- 
vide the reputation of it in the words of the Roman histo- 
rian, on a doubtful question of similar import, " quod pa- 
trem vovisse filium perfecisse.' 1 

New-York, April dth, 1762. 
My Dear Son, 

With respect to your passing the next summer 
in London or Edinburgh, I am at a loss to advise : perhaps 
by staying at the latter, under the eye of your present 
teachers, you may be thought sooner qualified to graduate, 
than if you divide your time between it and London ; and 
all the advantages you propose by now going there, may 
be had with greater profit after finishing your studies. 
These are my sentiments, but whatever you do, consult 
Dr. Fothergill and your London friends, and treat their 
advice with great tenderness and respect. I like your con- 
tinuing in Edinburgh, for a further reason, as it gives you 
an opportunity of cultivating the acquaintance of Mr. Mor- 
gan and Mr. Martin, with whom I hope you have laid the 
foundation of a lasting friendship. I much approve of 
your emulation, with respect to the establishing of a pro- 
per medical institution in this city ; but I think it should 
be commenced by a public hospital, which Mr. Tennent 
will inform you I have had thoughts of beginning. This 
and every other scheme of this kind, must be perfected by 
those young physicians who are to settle among us, emi- 



40 

nent for their learning, skill, and address, and I flatter my- 
self you will be of this number. 

Your affectionate father, 

J. B. 

The following is from his brother, and contains some 
notices of the college, at which he was educated, and in 
the prosperity of which, throughout a long life, he ever 
took a warm and active interest. 

Mw-York, Jan. 24, 1764. 
My Dear Brother, 

As I hate excuses, I hope you will pardon me, 
if I do not trouble you with reading and myself with writing 
them. Your good old president, Dr. Johnson, has lost his 
wife in the smallpox,* and gone to finish his well-spent 
days in retirement. He is succeeded in that station by 
Mr. Cooper, a gentleman recommended by the arch- 
bishop of Canterbury as a man of extensive learning, 
great piety, and an excellent preacher. Mr. Cooper is 
about thirty years of age, pleasing in manners, and very 
agreeable in conversation. I have had the pleasure of 
spending two or three evenings with him, at Mr. Kempe's, 
who is very fond of him, and thinks him a man of excel- 
lent sense and superior literature ; he was chosen pre- 
sident upon Dr. Johnson's resigning, and is very strict 
with regard to the duties of his pupils. The college is 

* At the present day, we can hardly form an idea of the ravages of 
this disease, or the apprehensions it excited. Dr. Johnson never had it, 
and three times within the period of his presidency, quitted the city to 
avoid the infection. 



41 

now in a much more flourishing condition than hitherto : 
Mr. George Harrison some time ago made the college a 
present of a fine bell, which is 4 hung in the cupola. As to 
the books you sent me, to begin with Monsieur Marmon- 
tel's Moral Tales, after going through both volumes, I could 
not help smiling at the title. There is little in them that 
deserves the name, unless that lively genius is content to 
place morality in love intrigues. But I sincerely think, 
there never was a better picture drawn of a lively French- 
man, with all his levity and triflingness of character. I 
have read your Churchill's poems, but under great disad- 
vantages, having just arisen from Pope and Swift. 
Your affectionate brother, 

S. B. 

From this time, during the remainder of the term, Mr. 
Bard's letters are so engrossed by the studies in which he 
was engaged, as to render them almost without interest to 
the general reader, and perhaps without novelty to pro- 
fessional ones : to his parents, however, they had both, 
and afforded a pleasing proof, that he fully appreciated 
their exertions, and was rightly employing the means of 
improvement they had so liberally put within his power. 
His anxiety to do so is very strongly expressed in a let- 
ter of his, about this date, to his brother, from which the 
following is an extract. 

Mv Dear Brother, s 

Your letter has made me very happy, 
in assuring me of the health of all our family, and also, 
that the expenses of my education do not fall so heavy 

6 



42 

on my good father as was apprehended ; but although 
this assurance has lessened the load on my spirits, it has 
not entirely relieved it, for I am afraid you spoke before 
you knew how my account stood. You, too, will then, I 
am afraid, begin to think, I ought to be uneasy at these 
expenses, which have so far exceeded what was expect- 
ed ; but I still have the satisfaction to know that my mo- 
ney has not been spent in a foolish or extravagant man- 
ner : nor, on the other hand, have I, from fear of spending 
it, neglected any necessary part of my education, or at any 
time appeared beneath the character of a gentleman." 

The flourishing state, of the university of Edinburgh, 
at this time, has already been alluded to. Like the ear- 
lier ages of literature, it then had about it a freshness and 
force of talent, which is, perhaps, but ill exchanged for 
the greater learning and higher polish of later periods. 
Robertson, the historian, was its Principal, Rutherford 
Whytt, the two Munros, father and son, Cullen, Hope, 
Ferguson, Gregory, and Blair, were its teachers and sup- 
porters. 

If we look to the causes which operated in producing 
this rare assemblage of talent and learning, within the walls 
of an institution till then, comparatively, unknown, we 
shall find that it was, in no small degree, the tardy fruit of 
that political union, which, half a century before, had uni- 
ted them to their southern neighbours. This union, by with- 
drawing men of talent from the absorbing power of poli- 
tics, left them free to calmer and more improving studies. 
It did not, indeed, operate effectually, until the termina- 
tion of the Jacobite struggle, about the middle of the last 



43 

century ; and hence, from the fatal battle of Culloden, we 
may date the commencement of modern Scottish litera- 
ture. 

The rise of a moderate party in the Kirk favoured 
this advancement. Bigotry had produced its usual reac- 
tion — liberal and free inquiry. Talent was sharpened by 
discussion, learning came into request, and was sought for, 
and gained, in foreign universities. To the school of Glas- 
gow, the fame of the Irish Hutcheson, and his successor, 
Adam Smith, attracted numerous students. Rivalry thus 
produced its excitement upon that of Edinburgh. At this 
crisis Robertson was called to be its Principal, in the year 
1761, and brought with him much of the interest of that 
moderate party over which he had long presided. His va- 
ried learning and courtly manners, were well calculated to 
win influence. Reputation once gained, increased the 
means of rewarding merit. The university was thus ena- 
bled to outbid the church, in the premium it offered for men 
of learning, and soon gathered within its pale the ripest 
minds that profession afforded. From this, the progress 
was easy ; talent awakened talent ; accident determined 
the bias to medicine, and the college of Edinburgh rose 
upon the learning of Leyden, first its rival, and then its 
victorious successor. 

To a similar excitement, may also be referred that 
hereditary talent and professional attachment, which has 
distinguished and adorned many families connected with 
this university. Domestic example has been powerful 
through domestic education ; sons have been to their 
fathers, first pupils, then assistants, then successors ; in- 
heritors of their mental as well as material w r ealth. And 
undoubtedly, in this particular, it possesses an advantage 



44 

over the universities of the southern part of the island, 
where the heartless celibacy of the Romish church still 
maintains its ground ; where an unholy divorce still sub- 
sists between the ability of the teacher and the solicitude 
of the parent.* 

Under such men was Dr. Bard trained, and at this pile 
was that torch lighted, which subsequently inflamed many 
kindred bosoms. Of his teachers he appears to have en- 
joyed (so far as a young stranger can be supposed to do,) 
the friendship as well as instruction ; was received as an in- 
mate into the family of Dr. Robertson, and kept up a fre- 
quent correspondence with his London instructors, especi- 
ally Dr. Fothergill. With Cullen's lectures he was pecu- 
liarly delighted ; in matter he styles him, " that accurate 
professor ;" and of his manner, he says, " I own I think 
nothing can exceed it, being so entertaining as well as in- 
structive, that I could listen to him with pleasure for three 
hours, instead of one." Of Monro's anatomical lectures 
he speaks highly, and comparing him with Hunter, says, 
" but for want of opportunities of dissection, I should have 
no occasion to regret the change from London ; but to 
have a subject in my possession here, would run the risk 
of banishment, if not of life." 

The employment of his summer recess now became a 
subject of discussion ; in the divided counsels of his friends, 
the weight of present influence, as is usual, turned the 
scale, and he decided most wisely to cultivate the good 

* This unwise separation of the best feelings of our nature, it is plea- 
sing to observe, is beginning to be broken down. Downing College, Cam- 
bridge, the last of the English foundations, being incorporated in the year 
1800, upon estates devised half a century before, contains the novel pro- 
vision, that its professorships shall not be vacated by marriag;e. 



45 

opinion of his teachers, by giving the preference to Edin- 
burgh. 

His next letter states this result, and evinces an active 
mind, which could enjoy leisure, without falling into indo- 
lence. 

Edinburgh, Sept. Ath, 1763. 

Honoured Sir, 

I have informed you that by the laws of the 
university, I cannot graduate in less than three years, and 
am now resolved not to leave Scotland at all, until I quit 
it entirely ; for I am convinced that going to London in 
the summer, would be rather a scheme of expensive plea- 
sure, than of improvement and study ; and all the good 1 
could propose myself, will be obtained with more ease and 
greater credit after I have graduated. 

I have applied myself chiefly this summer to botany, and 
hope I have so far mastered it as to be able to lay it aside. 
I intend the ensuing winter, to attend, for a second time, 
anatomy and chemistry, with the theory of physic ; and if 
I can find time, the lectures on rhetoric and the belles let- 
tres. If the scheme, with regard to the college, should 
ever take place, a good delivery, and a pleasing style in 
composition, I know from experience, are none of the low- 
est requisites in a professor. If it should, two things are 
necessary, a public hospital, and a good library of medical 
books. Mr. Tennent tells me you have thought of the 
hospital, and I hope it succeeds ; the society or college 
library, well stored with the best medical authors, might 
answer the other. You have interest enough to be made 
a governor of the college ; do you not think it might be of 



46 

advantage ? I am obliged to the lieutenant governor for his 
kind mention of me to Dr. Whytt ; he met me some time 
ago in the street, acquainted me of it, and invited me to 
his house. You are so good as to say you think I have 
not been extravagant in my expenses ; you may depend 
upon it I will not abuse your kindness, but that I will regu- 
late them by the strictest economy. I have written to my 
friends Mr. Kempe and David Colden. I have not yet re- 
ceived Dr. Franklin's letters, but wait for them with great 
impatience, for he is very much respected here, and his 
letters would be of infinite service to me : I almost wish 
you would put him in mind of it. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

New-York, Dec. 24th, 1763. 
Dear Sam, 

I receive the greatest pleasure from your let- 
ters, and very cheerfully submit to any inconvenience I 
suffer from the expense of your education. Proceed, my 
dear son, in the same paths of religion and industry, tem- 
perance, virtue, and honour, and wait with patience the 
time when you can return to your native country, an or- 
nament to your profession, a credit to your family, and 
useful to mankind. This will be delivered to you by Dr. 
Munro, who has lived in this place with great esteem, and 
established the reputation of a good physician and excellent 
surgeon ; for which reasons, as well as being my friend, I 
beg you will court his acquaintance. Our printers have 
published, from the Edinburgh papers, what has done you 
great honour : though we most ardently wish to see you, 



47 

I shall do all in my power to continue you the full time ne- 
cessary to complete your education. I would wish you 
to write to my old friend Mr. West,* who, I am informed, 
is settled in London, in very high business ; his friend- 
ship may be of service to you, as mine was to him, and I 
believe he has a very grateful heart. Your conduct and 
improvement, my dear son, has made all your family very 
happy, and particularly 

Your affectionate father, 

J. B. 

The following letters are from his favourite cousin, and 
afford a painful picture of a feeling mind, struggling with 
the repugnance of an unaccordant profession. 

Mount- Holly, June 20th, 1763. 

My Dearest Friend, 

I am pleased your situation and studies are 
agreeable to you, a certain omen of your making a pro- 
ficiency. Those you are engaged in are, indeed, truly de- 
lightful, conveying at the same time pleasure and instruc- 
tion. I wish I could exchange my barren wilds, and ob- 
scure labyrinths, for your province ; the spacious plains 
and flowery walks of the science of nature. 

Providence, my dear cousin, has been propitious to 
you, in determining you to a profession, whose humane 
and Christian tendency is to restore health and vigour 
to the enfeebled body ; to mark the traces of a Deity, in 
the amazing construction of that wonderful creature, man ; 

* >ir Benjamin West, late President of the Royal Academy. 



48 

and to discern the universal providence of a God, by dis- 
closing the secrets of nature, which proclaim his existence 
and his praise. What a contrast in our professions ; we 
administer fuel to the animosities of our neighbours ; you 
make them happy in the enjoyment of health. My poor 
father is in distressed circumstances ; his iron works, by 
a kind of fatality, have not been in order to work these 
twelve months, and I question if they ever will ; his tem- 
per does not square with the dispositions of his infernal 
crew : to keep them properly, a Turk or tyrant should 
preside over them. I tremble at the thoughts of the ap- 
proaching period of his letter of license, which must in- 
volve him in inextricable difficulty ; but thank God, he 
has choice friends, who will rescue him from ruin, and we 
all enjoy the greatest of temporal blessings, health. 

Yours, &c. 

S. B. 

Mount-Holly, ISth May, 1764. 

Dear Cousin, but dearer Friend, 

Your observation is just, of the inconvenience 
of looking on the dark side of things, and I should be a 
stranger to myself, did I not allow that such is the temper 
of my mind ; whether implanted by nature, or acquired 
by being a witness, and in some degree, a partaker of a 
constant series of misfortunes in our family, I cannot tell. 

Since I wrote you last, your papa has favoured us with 
a visit, but upon a sad occasion. My unhappy parent has 
again failed ; and your father, always ready to assist his 
friends, came here to aid him in a composition with his 
creditors. 



49 

While here, we paid a visit to Montpelier, and I never 
saw him more delighted than he was, in viewing the relics 
of that seat of our ancestors, and renewing all his youthful 
recollections. He pointed out to us, with great pleasure, 
the spot where the mansion-house stood, and lamented the 
destruction of a wide spreading mulberry tree that shaded 
the door : not the minutest circumstance escaped his ob- 
servation. 

We have dismal accounts from the northward, respect- 
ing the Indians. Pondiac, the Indian chief, who styles 
himself the king of kings, from the rising to the setting sun, 
is become very formidable. They tell us that he is per- 
fectly master of the art of war, in which he has been train- 
ed up by the French. A detachment from his army lately 
intercepted a body of seventy of Gage's light infantry ; the 
whole detachment is killed or missing ; the report is, that 
our cousin. William Bard, is one of the number. 

Miss Graeme will be the bearer of this, the Minerva of 
these parts, a young lady possessed of every female virtue 
and accomplishment. 

Your affectionate cousin, 

S. B. 

The apprehensions expressed by this anxious son, were 
soon realized ; ruin followed a second attempt of his father 
at mining, a business hazardous at the best, and for which 
he appears to have been peculiarly unfitted. A removal 
to Philadelphia was the result, where domestic calamity 
soon broke down the remains of an enfeebled constitu- 
tion. The death of his wife, and only son, the writer of 
the above letters, completed the shock, and he sunk the 



50 

victim of a broken heart, in the year 1763, leaving behind 
him two orphan daughters. Of the elder, who afterwards 
became Mrs. Bard, mention will often be made in the 
course of this narrative : of the younger, the following 
simple lines, penned at the bedside of her surviving pa- 
rent at the early age of ten years, afforded no unpleasing 
promise of both piety and talents ; a pledge which friend- 
ship may be allowed to say, her riper age well redeemed. 

O Lord, our Saviour and defence, 

Receive an infant's prayer ; 
And let my sighs and broken heart 

Reach thine Almighty ear. 

One dearest parent dead and gone, 

Another near the tomb ; 
Save, save his life, most gracious Lord, 

But let " thy will be done." 



In the autumn of 1763, Mr. Bard returned to his aca- 
demical duties ; entering upon a fuller course, with resolu- 
tions that had already stood the test of experience, and 
with a strong sense of gratitude for his father's bounty, 
which as he not unhappily expresses it, " I am laying out 
to the best advantage now, to return it double when we 
come to a reckoning." 

November 10, 1763. 
Dear Sir, 

The colleges are now begun, which for seven 
months will employ me fully, as I shall attend five classes ; 
Materia Medica, Theory of Physic, Chemistry, Anatomy, 



51 

and the Belles Lettres ; so that I hope you will excuse 
my letters not being in future so long and particular as 
you would wish them. I do assure you, sir, I never think 
of the great expense you are at in my education, without 
sentiments of the warmest gratitude ; at the same time, I 
feel much uneasiness, lest it should fall heavy upon you. 
This, and being absent from my friends, are the greatest 
drawbacks I have to the satisfaction 1 take in so complete 
an education, which, however, I hope one day to have it in 
my power to thank you for, without either of us regretting 
the expense it is now attended with. When you have lei- 
sure, I will thank you to acquaint me somewhat with the 
present state of physic in New- York ; if any men of note 
have entered into practice since I left it, and who have 
retired from it, as I hear Dr. Jones has done. There are 
no less than four of us in Europe, who will soon add to 
your number ; Messrs. Smith, Priam, Tennent, and my- 
self ; and Mr. Griffiths, who, I suppose by this time has 
arrived in New- York. It is a little unfortunate, that all 
these gentlemen will be at least a twelvemonth before me, 
and still more so, if I credit Mr. Tennent's assertion, that 
he has pre-engaged all the principal families, which will 
leave me at an humble distance, when I shall be ready to 
enter the lists against him. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

New- York, Jan. 1 7, i 764. 
My Dear Sam, 

By the last packet we had the pleasure of 
receiving yours of the 10th of November: 1 acknowledge 



52 

your punctuality in writing, and assure you, it gives us all 
the greatest pleasure. I formerly advised you to omit 
any particular application to the Belles Lettres, because 
I thought it would divide your thoughts too much from the 
severer studies of your profession ; but as this is only mat- 
ter of opinion, I shall leave it wholly to your own choice 
and judgment. With respect to the present state of phy- 
sic in this city, I think it is on such a footing as leaves a 
very fair prospect of a good settlement for you. Dr. 
Jones has not declined business altogether, though his 
health being infirm, obliges him to abate much of his prac- 
tice. Old Dr. Magraw, continues the favourite of some 
families still ; there has also lately arrived here a gentle- 
man of good character, Dr. Clossie ; he is yet a stranger, 
and has not been much employed, but is at present en- 
gaged in a course of anatomy with young gentlemen of 
the profession, who attend as pupils. 

Drs. Middleton, Farquhar, and young Dr. Charlton 
continue much on the same footing as when you left this. 
My business and establishment, I think rather increase, 
which I endeavour to cultivate for your sake, and shall 
do all in my power to preserve till your arrival, and 
then, my dear Sam, with the immediate and easy intro- 
duction which I shall be able to give, you will have at once 
an opportunity of exerting what share of merit you are 
possessed of, in the most advantageous manner. It was 
this consideration, joined with a good opinion of your abi- 
lities, that induced me to recommend this profession to 
you, in which I hope to see you eminent. Mr. Tennent's 
very singular boast of having engaged all the principal 
families in this city, has lessened him in my opinion ; such 



53 

an assertion is both weak and ostentatious ; however, my 
dear Sam, whatever opinion you may have of particular 
persons, especially those with whom His probable you 
may live in the same society, treat them not contemp- 
tuously, but with courtesy and good will, if you cannot 
with friendship and esteem. This city grows very large, 
it is opulent, and there are many quacks in it ; do not 
therefore, suffer yourself to be discouraged ; the superior 
advantages you will have through my means, joined with 
your own skill and address, will give you at least equal 
advantages with any other. I shall immediately write to 
Dr. Franklin to put him in mind of your letters. Our old 
friend governor Colden, continues in good health. Mr. 
David Colden very much regretted captain Tompion's 
going away so abruptly, as he had some curiosities for 
you he wished to send ; he will now write and send them 
to you by the first opportunity. By Mr. Alder, I send you 
a letter and small packet from David Colden, and a let- 
ter to Dr. Whytt from the governor. 

Your affectionate father, 

J. B. 

Edinburgh, Nov. 24, 1763. 
My Dear Father, 

In one of your letters there is a sen- 
tence which would really give me much uneasiness, were 
I not certain it flowed rather from the desire you have to 
hear from me than from any doubt you can have of my 
willingness. I am sure, sir, you never can think me capa- 
ble of so much ingratitude. So far from it, that permit me 
to assure you, was there any thing in my power, which 



54 

would contribute in the least to your happiness, however 
difficult it might seem to another, I should not only think 
it my duty to do it, as your son, but, as you have always 
treated me as such, should take a pleasure in performing 
it as your friend* 

I hinted at a very successful method taken by some 
gentlemen here, to encourage agriculture and the arts 
immediately depending on it, on their o\^n estates, by 
proposing small premiums to their tenants, I also men- 
tioned to you a scheme for raising madder in America ; 
I am credibly informed that, for this article, the British 
pay the Dutch above two hundred thousand pounds per 
annum ; it is a hardy plant, and stands the severe winter 
in Holland, so that I dare say, it would answer very well 
with us. At a moderate computation an acre of ground 
will yield thirty pounds sterling in three years ; and the la- 
bour attending it is not more than that of Indian corn. I 
have not yet had an opportunity of becoming thoroughly 
acquainted with the manner in which it is managed, but 
if you think it worth while, I can easily be informed. 

I have been introduced to the Lord Provost of Edin- 
burgh, who has complimented me with the freedom of the 
city, and given me an invitation to dine at his house once 
a week, which I very often accept. I breakfasted the 
other morning with Dr. Whytt, who told me he had late- 
ly heard from Dr. Huck ; he is now at Vienna, with Stork, 
the author of some papers upon Hemlock, and other vio- 
lent medicines. Dr. Huck says, he has seen no wonders 
as yet performed by them ; I myself have seen most of 
these medicines tried, in the hospitals at London and 
here, but without success. I have the pleasure to inform 



55 

you that I am happy in the personal acquaintance of the 
Principal, and most of the Professors of the university; 
and with some, as Dr. Hope, and Dr. Monro, I am parti- 
cularly intimate. This makes me much happier here than 
I otherwise should be, and I acquaint you with it, as I am 
sure it will give you pleasure. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Edinburgh, Feb. 4, 1764. 
Dear Sir, 

I am very much engaged at present with the 
college, and have but little news, either medical or politi- 
cal, to acquaint you with. There has lately a new work 
came out, Morgagni de Causis et Sedibus Morborum, 
grounded upon dissections of morbid bodies, from which 
the learned here have great expectations. Dr. Cullen 
has lately entertained me much, by some private lectures 
he gives to those who attend him for the second year, 
upon what he calls the Chemical Pathology, in which he 
attempts to prove the presence and necessity of an acid, 
generated in the stomach ; and endeavours to account for 
the assimilation of the aliment, upon more rational prin- 
ciples than the extravagant theories of the Corpuscula- 
rians and older chemists. What I chiefly admire is the 
manner of them ; we are convened at his own house, once 
or twice a week, where, after lecturing for one hour, we 
spend another in an easy conversation upon the subject 
of the last evening lecture, and every one is encouraged 
to make his remarks or objections with the greatest free- 
dom. I cannot help comparing him upon these occasions, 



56 

to some one of the ancient philosophers, surrounded by 
his admiring pupils. It must make him very happy, to see 
so many, even from the wilds of America, crowding his 
lectures and listening to him with the greatest attention 
and pleasure ; for he never speaks but you may see these 
emotions painted strongly in the faces of his hearers. 
Last week the judges for the annual medal, given by the 
professor of botany of this university, examined the Hortos 
Siccos of the candidates, and I have the pleasure to ac- 
quaint you decided it in my favour; in consequence of 
which determination, the medal is to be publicly given 
to me some time in April, by Dr. Hope. It is now near 
a year since I resolved to be a candidate for this prize, 
and have often been going to acquaint you with my de- 
sign, but the fear of miscarriage always prevented me \ 
and I am glad it did, as I have now the satisfaction of ac- 
quainting you both with my design and its success. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Edinburgh, April 1, 1764. 
Honoured Sir, 

I cannot omit this opportunity by Mr. 
Elliot, of sending you a copy of the papers* I read be- 
fore the Medical Society this winter : they may perhaps 
afford you half an hour's entertainment, and let you a little 
into the nature of that institution of which I informed you 
some time ago, I was admitted a member. In submit- 
ting them to your perusal, I cannot help feeling all that 

* The papers he read at various times before this society, are styled in 
their dimissory letter as " Plurima eademque Pulcherrima. ,, 



57 

anxiety which is natural to a beginner ; for, as they are 
the first fruits of my medical labours, they must contain 
many errors, some of which are too glaring to escape the 
notice, even of their partial parent, 

I heartily wish I could be with you at laying out your 
grounds, as I imagine 1 could be of some assistance, al- 
though I may find it impossible to convey my notions 
upon that subject in writing. From what I have as yet 
seen, I find those the most beautiful where nature is suf- 
fered to be our guide. The principal things to be obser- 
ved in planning a pleasure ground, seem to me, to be the 
situation of the ground, and the storms and winds the 
country is most liable to. By the first, I mean, to distri- 
bute my plants according to the soil they most delight in ; 
to place such as flourish most in a warm exposure and 
dry soil, upon the sunny side of a hill 5 while such as de- 
light in the shade and moist ground, should be placed in 
the vallies. By this single precaution, one of the greatest 
beauties of a garden is obtained, which consists in the 
health and vigour of the plants which compose it. By 
considering well the predominant winds and storms of the 
country, we are directed where to plant our large trees, 
so that they shall be at once an ornament, and afford a 
useful shelter to the smaller and more delicate plants. 
Next, I think straight lines should be particularly avoided, 
except where they serve to lead the eye to some distant 
and beautiful object — serpentine walks are much more 
agreeable. Another object deserving of attention seems 
to be, to place the most beautiful and striking objects, 
such as water, if possible, a handsome green-house, a 
grove of flowering shrubs, or a remarkably fine tree, in 

8 



58 

such situations, that from the house they may almost all 
be seen ; but to a person walking, they should be artfully 
concealed until he suddenly, and unexpectedly, comes 
upon them ; so that by the surprise, the pleasure may be 
increased : and if possible, I would contrive them so that 
they should contrast each other, which again greatly in- 
creases their beauty. The last thing I shall mention, 
which, indeed, is not the least worthy of notice, is, to 
throw the flower garden, kitchen, and fruit garden, and if 
possible, the whole farm, into one, so that they may ap- 
pear as links of the same chain, and may mutually contri- 
bute to the beauties of the whole. If you could send me 
an accurate plan of the situation of your ground,* descri- 
bing particularly the hollows, risings, and the opportunities 
you have of bringing water into it, the spot where you in- 
tend your house, and the situation of your orchard, I would 
consult some of my friends here about a proper plan, and 
I believe I know some who would assist us, and as I can- 
not obtain your gardener before November, if you send 
the plan immediately, I shall be able to return it by him. 
In my last letter I sent you one from Dr. Hope, in- 
forming you of my having the prize ; he has done me 
the honour to write also to Dr. Franklin upon the sub- 
ject. He has also desired me to acquaint you, that a 
number of gentlemen here have formed themselves into 
an association for the importation of American seeds and 
plants, and would be much obliged to you to recommend 
a proper person as a correspondent. 

* These details derive some interest from the fact that they relate to 
the very spot, which forty years afterward, he was himself engaged in 
adorning. 



59 

I know of no one who would answer so well as Mr. 
Bartram. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Edinburgh, June 2d, 1764. 
Honoured Sir, 

I am at present engaged in a variety of stu- 
dies ; besides my college duties, I have two private tutors 
who attend me. With one, I spend an hour every day in 
writing and speaking Latin ; with the other, French : and 
also three hours in the week with a most excellent draw- 
ing master. So many branches, together with reading 
practical authors, entirely fill up my time, and are attend- 
ded with considerable expense ; but I hope I shall never 
repent it, and that it will one day, be returned to me 
with interest. I sent you, some time ago, a letter from Dr. 
Hope, since that the medal has been publicly given to me, 
and the enclosed paragraph published on the occasion. I 
had an opportunity this winter of showing my preparations 
to Dr. Pulteney, a man of eminence in the literary world, 
and Fellow of the Royal Society ; he praised them much, 
and assured me they exceeded any in the British museum. 
He presented me on going away, with a thesis, with the 
following compliment on the first page : 

FROM THE AUTHOR, TO MR. BARD, 
AS A SMALL TRIBUTE OF RESPECT DUE TO HIS SUCCESS 

IN 
CULTIVATING BOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE 



60 

You, perhaps, think me vain, in thus sounding my own 
praises : I own I am proud of these testimonies of appro- 
bation from men of learning, but, believe me, I do not 
communicate them to you through ostentation, but with 
a design to give you pleasure, as I know they will. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Edinburgh, June Sth, 1764. 
Honoured Sir, 

The ensuing winter I shall attend, for a second 
time, anatomy, chemistry, and add to them materia medi- 
ca, with the theory and practice of physic, which last will 
be my principal study ; the winter after, it will form my 
only one ; and I hope to be able so to manage it, by writing 
my thesis next summer, as to graduate the spring follow- 
ing ; and then, if you could allow me to spend a few 
months in France, and a winter at the hospitals in Lon- 
don, I should hope the spring of ^66 might bless me again 
with a sight of my native country and friends. I formerly 
acquainted you with my being made a member of the me- 
dical society of this place ; ae I imagine it will be agreea- 
ble, I will here give you a short account of its institution, 
and the plan upon which it is now regulated : in the year 
1737, it was first organized by Drs. Cullen, Akenside, and 
some others, who are now at the head of their profession 
here or in London ; and since that time it has had many 
members, who have become ornaments to society. As 
is natural, it has undergone many changes, and now con- 
sists of between twenty and thirty members, who meet 
every Saturday evening, in a room in the infirmary, when 



61 

they dispute upon medical subjects in the following man- 
ner : each member has, about six months before hand, a 
set of papers given him, to write a comment upon, consist 
ing of a practical case, a question on some medical point, 
and an aphorism of Hippocrates. Every Saturday a set of 
these papers are produced, and read before the society by 
the author, having circulated for a week before amongst 
the members, who come prepared with objections, and the 
author with arguments to defend them. In this exercise 
of disputation we spend about four hours, and to very good 
purpose, for we are obliged to muster our whole stock of 
knowledge, to defend opinions, which are never allowed to 
pass without being thoroughly examined ; and as there are 
always a number of members, men of real knowledge, we 
young men are not allowed to be carried away by false 
reasoning, or led into erroneous opinions. 

I have lately received great pleasure and improvement 
in reading Lord Karnes's late work, and recommend it to 
your perusal, especially that part of it relating to garden- 
ing and architecture, before you go on in improving your 
place on the north river. He most justly condemns the 
cutting of gardens into formal parterres, or forcing na- 
ture in any respect ; at the same time, points out, in a 
beautiful and philosophical manner, where we are im- 
plicitly to follow this amiable mistress, and when and 
how we may improve, by modest dress, her native beau- 
ties. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 



62 



New-York, Sept. 19th, 1764* 

My Dear Sam, 

I have examined, with great pleasure, your 
essays which you read before the medical society: you 
have entered far into the several subjects, and have made 
very judicious observations and conjectures upon them. 
On this subject let me beg, my dear son, that you will find 
time to read in your chamber, with the closest attention, 
Sydenham and Huxham on acute epidemical diseases; 
read them both in Latin and English ; you will find infinite 
use and satisfaction in this task : as much as you can make 
yourself master of the spirit, genius, and whole scope of 
these authors, and make them to the utmost of your 
power, your own. 

Whatever scheme you adopt while you stay in Europe, 
I would advise you to such a plan as will best familiarize 
you to a useful practice, which will require a close atten- 
dance on the judgment and manner of prescribing of the 
most experienced and eminent physicians, and reading the 
symptoms and progress of diseases at the bed-side. 

Mr. Inglis and Mr. Elliot speak very respectfully of you 
in this city ; and Dr. Smith, who is arrived, has assured me, 
in company of Dr. Jones, that there is no doubt of your 
being an ornament to your profession. We all comfort 
ourselves, that the time is approaching when we shall have 
the pleasure of seeing you, but not before you have visit- 
ed Paris, and Leyden, and spent some time in London. 
We have received from you, two very agreeable letters, to- 
gether with the prints, your picture, and your preparations 
for the governor, which I shall present to him as you de- 



63 

sire. I hope you will have finished your studies at Edin- 
burgh at the time you mention ; and with respect to your 
going immediately to France or Holland, I leave it entire- 
ly to your choice, as you must be the best judge. On my 
part I shall take care, to the utmost of my power, to supply 
you, as in the prosecution of your studies you have given 
me the most entire satisfaction. We think your picture 
very like,* and well executed 5 it was a most agreeable 
present to us all. I very much approve the subject you 
have chosen for your thesis, and the person you propose 
to dedicate it to, and the pains you have taken to improve 
yourself in the Latin language. Adieu, my dear son, I 
look forward to the time of seeing you with great plea- 
sure. 

J. B. 

New-York, Jan. 13, 1765. 
My Dear Son, 

I have received the copies of your Thesis ; 
it has given me and all your friends, much satisfaction. I 
think you have exhausted the subject, and treated it in a 
way greatly to your honour ; though we think you went 
too far in the experiments you made upon yourself. Your 
dedication is such as I would choose. I am sorry you had 
not a hundred more printed off, as the few yeu have re- 
served for your American friends are not sufficient : I 
would have been glad of forty or fifty more. I advise you to 
cultivate, while in London, the acquaintance of Drs. Huck, 

* His brother, it seems, thought otherwise, as in a letter of the same 
date, he says, "either the painter has not done you justice, or Europe 
has not made you handsomer.'' 1 



64 

Franklin, Fothergill, West, &c. which will naturally lead 
you into company necessary, after a severe college life, to 
give you that polite easy carriage, which of all things most 
commends a gentleman, and which is only to be acquired 
in company of good taste, and the want of which is a great 
injury to the three young men already arrived. You have 
always had an easy temper and manner adapted to make 
friends : the grafting upon these, a polite, affable, and cheer- 
ful behaviour, is not difficult ; although sometimes the air 
of a college is not so readily worn off. Where the physi- 
cian and gentleman unite, you never perceive any thing 
of pedantry ; it argues both ignorance and vanity — not 
ignorance perhaps of the profession, but of every thing 
else. A physician should never assume that, but at his 
patient's bed-side, and even then, avoid all formality. 

My dear son, pardon one piece of advice more ; a gen- 
tleman always appears to great advantage in his private 
letters. There is no fault to be found with the sentiments 
or style of yours, but I wish you would endeavour to be 
a little neater, in their external form and dress. It is 
an accomplishment by no means below r a gentleman : 
there is a gentility even in the manner of folding and 
sealing, and I am the more particular on this occasion, as 
I know nothing you are remiss in, excepting this point, 
which you think more trifling than I do. 

Mr. Kempe wishes I could supply you with five hundred 
pounds sterling, as he says he is convinced of your abilities 
and merit in your profession, and nothing should be spared 
to make you return a finished gentleman, as well as a good 
physician. In answer to this, I have told him, that it is 
the man, and not the expense, that forms that charac- 



65 

ter. Good sense, goodness of heart, and a manner that is 
wholly a man's own, and arises from these qualifications. 
with the advantages of good company, will ever form the 
gentleman, and an exceeding agreeable character. Howe- 
ver, 1 most heartily wish it was in my power to comply 
with your friend's advice •, but though I cannot, if you 
or your friends in England should be of opinion your 
longer continuance is necessary, I will, to the utmost of 
my power, contribute towards it ; for which I have estate 
enough, though difficult at this unhappy time to raise mo- 
ney from it. Whatever you conclude to do upon the re- 
presentation of my affairs and my inclinations towards you, 
as I have now expressed them, I beg you will give me the 
earliest account, that I may govern myself accordingly ; as 
it will be necessary, if you conclude to remain longer in 
Europe than next spring or summer, that I contrive some 
further methods to supply you ; the whole of your conduct 
has been so much to my satisfaction that I would cheer- 
fully submit to any difficulties for your comfort and advan- 
tage. 

J. B. 

Mzv-York, Feb. 19, 1765. 
My Dear Son, 

I very much approve of your first visiting 
Holland and France, before you go to London, and then to 
prosecute the scheme you mention of attending to the 
mode of prescribing, of the most eminent physicians. A 
neat and simple manner of prescribing, is a great proof of 
a physician's skill, and greatly conducive to the patient's 

9 



66 

safety. Dr. Huck possesses that quality in a great degree, 
and has a happy faculty of exploring the true nature of 
disease, and adapting his remedies successfully. I shall 
take the liberty of recommending you to his particular 
friendship : I am sure he will take you by the hand, and 
render you any good offices in his power: when you are 
there, your own judgment will point out to you the proper 
course, and I have the utmost confidence in your discre- 
tion. I have received a very polite letter from Dr. Mor- 
gan since his arrival in Philadelphia, where he mentions 
you in terms of the greatest respect. 

Tennent is not yet arrived ; Dr. Smith and Prince are 
here. There has not been much done in our college yet, 
nor any thing towards erecting a public hospital; these 
are things that will be reserved probably for you, and your 
contemporaries. As the time is now not far off when I 
expect the happiness of seeing you, permit me to mention 
one thing which, perhaps, is needless. In your taste of 
clothes preserve a plain and manly fashion, as well as in 
your manners. I know many young men of learning and 
talents, so captivated by this feather, as greatly to lessen 
that esteem they would otherwise obtain. Be extremely 
neat, but plain in your dress, set off by an easy, cheerful, 
open, candid address, and joined with such a becoming 
gravity as arises from the mind being engaged on subjects 
of importance. Consider further, my dear son, that New- 
York is to be the place of your residence, where plain- 
ness in dress has been long the taste of men of the great- 
est fortune, and much respect is due to the fashion and 
custom of the country where you live. 



67 

You will not forget to procure me some of the Rhubarb 
head you sent me so good a drawing of;* and I should be 
glad you would observe what you can, with respect to the 
paper mills of Scotland. 

With respect to your dedication to the governor,! I wish 
you to remember, he is an old gentleman who likes res- 
pect, but is impatient of adulation. I think I would make 
it very short : mention your first instruction in botany, 
which is a branch of medicine, to have been received 
from him ; and with an honest and plain expression of 
gratitude acknowledge his instances of kindness to you, 
and offer the dedication of your Thesis as a public testi- 
mony of that gratitude. 

Your affectionate father, 

J. B. 

Edinburgh, Aprill, 1765. 
My Dear Father, 

My brother informed me of your inten- 
tion of building a paper-mill upon the glebe farm, in which 
I may, perhaps, have it in my power to be of some ser- 

* Another copy of this drawing of the Rheum Palmatum was annexed 
to Dr. Hope's papers on that subject, in the Transactions of the Royal 
Society of London. This plant was raised in the botanic garden which 
he had established near Edinburgh, and was the means of superceding, 
as he intended, the foreign importation. 

t Of this gentleman less is known in this country than his merit de- 
serves. The reputation of the late Cadwallader Colden as a man of 
science, is acknowledged in the works of Linnseus, Gronovius, Maccles- 
field, k,c. with whom he maintained a frequent correspondence ; while 
his papers before the Royal Society, his treatises on Gravitation, Fluxions, 
and Medical Pathology, evince both learning and originality. Franklin 
gives him the credit of being the founder of the American Philosophical 
Society. 



68 

vice to you. As soon as I knew this to be your intention, 
I made it my business to inquire into the state of that 
manufacture in this country : there are about Edinburgh 
five or six, most of which I have seen, and as they seem 
to be built upon a plan different from those with which 
you are acquainted, I have sent you a draught I made of 
the mash-tub, &c. As I saw nothing else about the mill 
which seemed new, or uncommon, I have sent you no 
more drawings ; but if there is any thing you desire to be 
particularly acquainted with, let me know it, for I think 
there is no object more worthy the attention of a gentle- 
man, than the introduction of new manufactures into his 
native country. Before I visited the paper-mills, I read* 
Postlewhaite upon that article, and received so much in- 
struction from him, that T recommend him to you. I shall 
use my utmost endeavour to be able to come over to you 
in some of the spring ships, for 1 assure you I am as im- 
patient as you can be, to hasten my return, while at the 
same time, I am loath to lose any opportunity of improve- 
ment which I shall probably never again have in my 
power. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

Edinburgh, May 15, 1765. 
My Dear Father, 

My work being now over, and my mind 
at ease, I lay hold of the first opportunity of spending an 
hour with you, and communicating to you a little of the 
satisfaction I myself feel. The day before yesterday, I 
received my degree, with all the form and ceremony usual 



69 

upon such occasions. The two Monros, with Dr. Cullen, 
were in all my private examinations. My good friend Dr. 
Hope, publicly impugned my Thesis 5 and to all of them I 
consider myself much indebted, for their behaviour upon 
this occasion, in which, although they kept up the strict- 
ness of professors, they never lost sight of the politeness 
of gentlemen. My examinations were as follows : on the 
first day, I had not the most distant hint what was to be 
the subject of my trial. I went in, I confess, trembling, 
and Dr. Cullen began my examination by asking me some 
general definitions, as " quid est medicina ?" and so on : 
he then went to the structure of the stomach and alimen- 
tary canal, thence made a digression to their diseases, with 
their diagnosis and method of cure. Then, young Dr. Mon- 
ro followed upon similar topics. This ended my first exa- 
mination, which lasted near an hour. My next, consisted 
in writing commentaries upon two aphorisms of Hippo- 
crates, and defending them against old Dr. Monro, and 
Dr. Cullen, which took up one hour also. My last pri- 
vate one was writing commentaries upon two cases in 
practice, much in the same manner as those I sent, which 
I defended against young Dr. Monro, and Dr. Cullen. 
This examination took up an hour and a half; and lastly, 
I was called upon publicly in the hall, to defend my The- 
sis. During all these trials, my exercises were not only 
written in Latin, but I was obliged to defend them in the 
same language ; not even in the first, where I was ignorant 
of my subject, being allowed to speak a word of English. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 



70 



THE foregoing series of letters it has not been worth 
while to interrupt, by the few additional particulars which 
the recollections of friendship have retained, and which 
are here subjoined. 

His private instructer he described as a man " learned 
and ingenious, but at the same time bold and dogmatic ;" 
nor will medical men be inclined to dispute the justice of 
this description, when it is added, that it relates to Dr. 
John Brown, afterward so well known as the author of 
the medical theory which bears his name ; a pathology so 
simple in its principles, and so easy in its application, as to 
have been liable to great practical abuse. But from this 
boasted simplicity, it may be added, medical science is 
now content to recede, and to rest in the humbling ac- 
knowledgment that we are " fearfully and wonderfully 
made." This bold and self-taught theorist, at the time of 
Dr. Bard's employing of him, was struggling with pover- 
ty and neglect ; working his way into notice by occasional 
attacks on received opinions, and gaining a scanty liveli- 
hood by classical instruction, and what, in the cant lan- 
guage of the university, is termed grinding or cramming, 
by which is meant fitting the idle or the dull for a formal 
examination. Either from disgust at his task, or the in- 
adequacy of its compensation, at this time Brown talked 
much of emigrating to America. Had he carried this plan 
into effect, it would probably have connected him with 
his young pupil, in building up a medical school in New- 
York. The patronage, however, of Dr. Cullen, who, by 



71 

the daily loan of his lectures, enabled him to repeat and 
illustrate them to a class of private pupils, soon turned his 
attention from this trans-atlantic scheme, and opened to 
him brighter prospects, had he possessed either the pru- 
dence necessary to realize them, or the virtue, without 
which talent soon becomes contemptible. 

In the lectures of Dr. Blair, Mr. Bard took great de- 
light ; they gratified a naturally delicate and discerning- 
taste, which fitted him to excel in such studies. On one oc- 
casion, the ability he displayed in the criticism of a paper 
submitted to him, drew from the professor a marked pub- 
lic commendation. In a mind of such a temperament, 
praise stimulated exertion, and not a little of his subse- 
quent fondness for these studies, and ability in them, may 
be traced to the assiduity with which he then cultivated 
them. Not content in this department with the ordinary 
course, he was enabled, by Sheridan's visit to Edinburgh, 
to supply that in which alone his accomplished teacher 
was deficient, the power of delivery. Dr. Blairs manner 
he described as impressive, in spite of all its faults. With 
a voice weak by nature, and a pronunciation incorrect by 
early habit, he yet commanded singular attention, and had 
he but inherited the resolution, as he did the defect* of the 
great orator of antiquity, he might have furnished to his 
hearers, not only the rule, but the example. In this art 
Dr. Bard was, as has been already hinted, no mean profi- 
cient. In after life, he always commanded in public de- 
livery, a degree of attention, which went far beyond the 



tera 



Blair, like Demosthenes, was unable to pronounce the letter r, "li 
qua Demosthenes laboravit," says Quint. 



72 

claims either of his figure or voice ; but which was the re- 
sult of graceful gesture, correct emphasis, and above all, 
the nice discrimination and animated expression of the 
sense and feeling of that which he delivered. If, according 
to Aristotle, 7* 9n0«v«v be that which constitutes the soul of 
eloquence, Dr. Bard was an orator of no common stamp ; 
he threw his heart into his words, and from the fullness of 
his own, poured persuasion into the breast of others. By 
those who knew him it will be readily acknowledged, how 
difficult it was successfully to oppose that fullness of con- 
viction, and that fearlessness of undoubting sincerity with 
which he maintained his opinions ; and which, supported 
by variety of knowledge and command of language, se- 
cured to him a large and permanent circle of influence. 

Most men hold their opinions loosely ; they will give 
them up rather than fight for them ; hence the victories 
which, independent of right and wrong, enthusiasm can 
ever gain over the mass of mankind 5 and which, when 
joined to knowledge and virtue, as in this case it doubtless 
was, forms " such materials," to use the words of a friend 
of Dr. Bard, " as the benefactors of the world are made 
of." 

The medical society, the history and objects of which 
are contained in one of the letters to his father, held a 
higher standing than generally belongs to such recent and 
youthful institutions. The letter of recommendation which 
he received from this society on his departure, has the sign 
manual of each of its members, among whom may be found 
the names of some whom kings have since " delighted to 
honour," and what is more to their credit, who have them- 
selves done honour to their profession. Among such may 



73 

be mentioned, Saunders of London, and Sir Lucas Pepys, 
physician to the late king; Percival, of Manchester ; Pro- 
fessor Duncan, of Edinburgh ; Professor Parsons, of Ox- 
ford ; Haygarth, and Watson, of Cambridge, and Professor 
Morgan, of Philadelphia ; names widely scattered, yet in- 
debted, perhaps, to this early union, for the first excitement 
of that native talent which subsequently rendered them 
conspicuous. Of this letter-patent it may be observed, 
that the language is indicative of affection as well as re- 
spect, and the expression " animus ad optimum quodque 
paratus," not unaptly describes that moral readiness of 
mind, which marked his character, and which fitted him, 
under whatever circumstance he was placed, promptly to 
turn all his powers to the advancement of some honour- 
able or useful end. 

Of his thesis " de viribus opii," which he defended at his 
examination, medical men have spoken with great respect. 
Soon after its appearance, it attracted the attention of Hal- 
ler, and recently has been quoted by Crumpe, in language 
singularly respectful for an academical thesis, but not per- 
haps beyond its merits, if we look to the philosophical 
manner in which its materials were collected. Having 
selected, as his subject, the effects of opium on the human 
system, which, in common with his teachers, he regarded 
as a stimulant, he instituted a set of experiments, first upon 
himself, and subsequently upon a fellow student, to test, or 
rather to verify, that opinion. His room-mate, Dr. Saun- 
ders, of London, submitted, upon the offer of reciprocal 
aid, to be the subject of this experimental analysis. The 
experiments were frequently and carefully repeated ; and 
the results accurately noted. His facts being thus obtain- 

10 



74 

ed, he proceeded with his inductions, and concluded, if not 
with truth, at least, with singular freedom from prejudice, 
in the opposite opinion from that which he had proposed 
maintaining. Whether that opinion be right or wrong, the 
mode of arriving at it was creditable alike to his candour 
and his enterprise ; it evinced an openness to conviction, 
and a fairness of mind, which form not only the basis of 
moral excellence, but the corner-stone of true philoso- 
phy. Touching the truth of the doctrine itself, which 
the author believes is not now the prevalent one, it may 
be suggested, that medicines are to be ranked as stimu- 
lant, or sedative, not by their manner of acting, but by 
their efficient results. The " modus agendi" lies not with- 
in the province of sound philosophy. It may be, and per- 
haps is true, that whatever acts on the living fibre is 
necessarily stimulant : yet, if the indirect debility which 
succeeds, be, as in the case of opium it unquestionably is, 
great and rapid, to all practical purposes it may be rank- 
ed as a sedative, though it must be acknowledged that its 
powers of nervous excitement are often at variance with 
this opinion. 

In fulfilment of his offer, Mr. Bard became, in his turn, 
the subject of a series of experiments to his fellow student. 
Their object, it is believed, was the operation of ammonia ; 
but whatever it was, they were either less safe in their na- 
ture, or less cautiously conducted ; since a state of torpor, 
which continued several hours, was, in one instance, their 
result, and probably checked, for the time, the zeal of 
these young experimentalists. 

This thesis, thus carefully prepared, and ably defended, 
admitted Mr. Bard to his medical degree. His diploma 



75 

bears date September 6, 1765, and has the signatures- 
affixed of the two Robertsons, Rutherford, the two Mon- 
ros, Whytt, Hope, Young, Hamilton, Cumming, Ferguson, 
Russell, and Blair. 

The polite and friendly manner in which Cullen con- 
ducted his examination, marked, as Dr. Bard observed, his 
ordinary demeanour to the students ; which not only secu- 
red to him their respect and attachment, but gave to his 
department such exclusive popularity, as to be hardly con- 
sistent with the comparative claims of the other parts of 
the medical course, a distinction certainly not viewed with- 
out envy by his less fortunate brethren. The novelty of the 
science he taught, a title which, before his philosophical 
arrangement, chemistry could hardly claim ; the brilliancy 
of his experiments, and the boldness of his opinions, no 
doubt added force to this preference ; still, however, his 
mild and persuasive manners were the great source of it, 
for when in the following year* he gave place to an abler 
chemist, and succeeded to an unpopular professor, he 
transferred to his new department all his former popula- 
rity. 

With the botanical professor he was a great favourite. 
" My good friend, Dr. Hope," is his ordinary designation 
of him ; and he justly felt it no small praise to be thus dis- 
tinguished in botany by the friend of Linnaeus. 

The particular intimacy with Dr. Monro, of which Dr. 
Bard speaks in one of his letters, related to the younger of 
that name ; one whom he resembled much in character, 

*In 1766, upon the death of Dr. Whytt, Cullen succeeded to the chair 
of " Theory of Medicine," and was succeeded in his own by the emi- 
nent Dr. Black. 



76 

and not less in fate. Four years older than his pupil, 
Monro died the same number of years before him ; both 
rising to the highest eminence, in their profession, and in 
the medical schools of their respective countries ; both re- 
taining, amid the bodily weaknesses of age, all their men- 
tal vigour, and each closing his academical career by the 
delivery of a valedictory discourse in the seventy-seventh 
year of life ; Monro, to his medical class, and Dr. Bard, to 
the graduates of the college over which he presided. 

The elder Monro, who may justly be considered the fa- 
ther of that great medical school, was at this time about 
retiring from the duties of a lecturer, warned not so much 
by the infirmities of age, as by the encroachments of a 
painful disease, which, two years afterward, terminated 
his life. Of his early labours he lived long to enjoy the 
fruits : for forty years he continued to lecture in the 
school he may be said to have founded, and dying, left to 
his son the reputation of his name, and the possession of 
the first anatomical chair in Europe. 

Among other circumstances worthy of note in this cir- 
cle of academical worthies, is the longevity of its members, 
and the long period of their useful labours. Dr. Hope con- 
tinued to lecture until near the end of his life, which ter- 
minated in 1786 ; having been advanced, some years be- 
fore, to the presidency of the Royal Medical College. 

Cullen's labours and life ended together, in the year 
1790, being joint professor, at the period of his death, 
with the learned and amiable Gregory. Blair retired in 
1783, and survived his retirement ten years. Robertson 
wore his honours until the seventy-second year of his 
age. While Monro, as we have already noticed, was spa- 



77 

red for more than half a century to deliver his instruc- 
tions from that chair which his father had so long digni- 
fied ; and then transmitted his professorship, as he had 
received it, an inheritance to his son. 

Among the traits of character which distinguished Dr. 
Bard, throughout life, was an insatiable inquisitiveness of 
mind, which led him, wherever he was, to ransack, and 
examine whatever came within his reach, whether of 
art or nature. Minerals, plants, animals, man, and his 
works, were rapidly, and alternately, the object of his at- 
tention. Whatever was rare, or beautiful, or useful, im- 
mediately seized upon his imagination, and afforded mat- 
ter for curious investigation, or a basis for ingenious theo- 
ry. Sometimes, indeed, his own creative fancy would in- 
vest an ordinary subject with imaginary value ; and then, 
his mind looking rather to its own conceptions than to 
that which had excited them, would run out into brilliant, 
but illusive deductions. Even while engaged in his medi- 
cal studies, the husbandry, arts, and manufactures of Edin- 
burgh, and its neighbourhood, were frequently the subjects 
of his inquiries, and the basis of future plans of wealth to 
his family, or benefit to his country. The cultivation of 
madder, saffron, and rhubarb; the manufactory of tape, of 
glass, and of paper, with directions for the one, and plans 
for the other, occupied, in their turn, the restless curiosity 
of his mind, and formed the topic of many of his later 
letters to his father. Of this temper of mind, which some- 
times ran into a fault, at least in a prudential point of view, 
Dr. Bard was destined soon to receive the best correc- 
tive, in the calm practical judgment of the lady to whom 
he became attached : a firm, tender, and judicious friend. 



78 

to whose wise caution, and prudent management, no small 
share of his subsequent worldly success is to be imputed. 

Freed from academical studies, and untramelled, as yet, 
by professional duties, he employed the remainder of the 
autumn in an excursion through the most interesting parts 
of Scotland. His high gratification left him, it would seem, 
but little time for the expression of it ; as an occasional 
rapturous criticism in his letters is the only record made 
of it : these show, however, the tone of feeling excited. 
He gazed with awe on the castle of the duke of Argyle, at 
Inverary, " amid wild and desolate mountains, a Gothic 
pile, in a country Gothic by nature. 5 ' And on the picture 
of the duchess at Hamilton, he " hung" he says " with rap- 
ture, as she looked a degree above human nature." But 
neither the fair plea of relaxation after his labours, nor the 
high enjoyment such scenes afforded, could long detain 
him from his great aim, towards the completion of which 
he now hastened. 

Finding no suitable companion for his continental tour, 
he deferred it until a more agreeable season, and establish- 
ed himself, for the winter, in London ; by invitation making 
Mr. Board's house his home, but passing the greater part of 
his time in attendance on Guy's and St. Thomas's hospitals. 
In these he devoted himself to the medical in preference to 
the surgical side of the house 5 finding, like his favourite 
teacher, Cullen, that his natural sensibility was too keen 
for a calm and scientific operator. 

Of this V winter in London," no letters remain to show 
its employment ; but the fresh recollections and minute 
acquaintance which Dr. Bard ever after evinced, of all 
that renders that metropolis curious and interesting, show 



79 

that his leisure hours were not wasted in frivolous or fa- 
shionable dissipation. 

With the return of spring came again the long pro- 
posed, and frequently deferred, project of a continental 
tour ; among the attractions of which, the University of 
Leyden seemed to hold the first place. The reputation 
of Boerhaave gave sanctity, in his opinion, to that semi- 
nary : he not only respected him as a great and success- 
ful teacher of the healing art, but venerated him as one 
of the greatest and best of men — frequently dwelt upon his 
character with an enthusiasm that showed much of moral 
sympathy with the virtues it displayed, and recommen- 
ded it in conversation to the young as a model for their 
imitation, and a high and encouraging picture of what 
virtue and industry can perform. He may even be said 
to have closed his professional career with his name upon 
his lips, as the last discourse he delivered to the medical 
graduates concludes with a forcible delineation of the cha- 
racter of this great man, as the best embodied picture he 
could give them of the perfection at which they should 
aim. 

To this opinion, which, however exalted, can hardly be 
termed exaggerated, the prejudices of education had given 
strength. Of the two Monros, the elder was the intimate 
friend of Boerhaave, and the younger his favourite pupil ; 
and both contributed to exalt his reputation among their 
students, while, by their talents, they were in some degree 
eclipsing his fame. To this latter point, indeed, his pupil 
Cullen laboured directly, by substituting a new medical 
theory for that of his master. Later physiologists have, 
however, done justice to the sagacious conjectures of 



80 

Boerhaave ; and shown them to be, like those of Bacon, 
anticipations of knowledge beyond the reach of his age. 

There are no letters to show to what cause the aban- 
donment of this tour is to be attributed ; it must, at any 
rate, have been a painful sacrifice, and it is much to be 
regretted that the last finish was not thus given to his me- 
dical education. He was now, in the language of Sydney, 
" fitted for travel," and an observant and retentive mind 
would have stored up much valuable matter for future 
speculation and improvement. 

Whatever hastened his return, still left him time for an 
excursion of pleasure, to which he often afterward alluded 
with delight. Enthusiastic in all his feelings of admira- 
tion, whether excited by art or nature, he found them all 
gratified in visiting those 

" Ancient seats, with venerable oaks 
Embosomed high," 

which give to England a beauty and interest superior to 
more favoured regions. On these recollections he dwelt 
with peculiar pleasure when, late in life, he laboured to 
transfer some of their beauties to that spot where his old 
age found its amusements, if not its occupation. 

Of his increased intimacy in London with his former 
friends or extended acquaintance, little can be told but 
from casual recollections : the name of Dr. Aikin was 
often mentioned by him as a friend and companion ; and 
of his last visit to Dr. Fothergill he told the following anec- 
dote. 

After much salutary advice, suitable to a parting visit. 
Dr. F. concluded with what he termed the secret of his 



81 

own success, " I crept," said he, " over the backs of the 
poor into the pockets of the rich." It would be doing injus- 
tice to a character of more than common philanthropy, to 
interpret this as a recommendation of cold-hearted selfish- 
ness ; as such it was neither intended, nor felt ; but as a pru- 
dential maxim which Dr. Bard often himself repeated, and 
enforced upon young physicians, viz : that the basis of their 
practice and their fame, to be permanent, should be laid in 
the opinions of the many, and thus growing up, by insen- 
sible degrees, it would be free from the dangers that attend 
on a premature reputation, or a narrow and wavering 
patronage. 

After a residence of ten months in the metropolis, he 
prepared for his return, and taking passage in a merchant 
ship for New- York, delayed embarking until she had drop- 
ped down the river. This circumstance is mentioned 
as introductive of a little adventure, which, as it is the 
only one of the kind that befell him abroad, and as taken 
directly from his own narration, is here given. Going 
down to join the vessel at Gravesend, in company with a 
young friend, owing to the late hour of their departure, they 
found themselves benighted on Blackheath ; a piece of 
road, even now, not without its terrors, and, at that day, 
noted for scenes of violence. The darkness of the night, 
combining with their ignorance of the road, soon bewil- 
dered them ; and after wandering a while in trackless ob- 
scurity, they were forced to take up their lodgings in 
what they next morning found to be a lone house upon 
the heath. Retiring to rest in the same room, they seem 
to have had no suspicion of danger, but soon fell asleep. 
In the course of the night, one of them having arisen, was 

11 



82 

surprised to find the door locked on the outside : alarmed 
at this suspicious circumstance, he awaked his companion, 
when both dressed and proceeded to search their room 
for means either of escape, or resistance. A narrow and 
concealed door at length attracted their notice, and yield- 
ed to their cautious efforts to open it. It was connected 
with a descending step-ladder, at the bottom of which lay 
a cloak and sword, with a dark lanthorn lighted. Making 
themselves masters of these implements, which they sus- 
pected, perhaps not without reason, were to be used against 
themselves, they barricaded the entrances with what 
means the room afforded, and passed the remainder of 
the night in sleepless anxiety. Waiting until the mor- 
ning sun had dissipated all apprehensions of personal 
violence, they retreated as fast as possible from this in- 
tended scene of violence, neither asking nor giving an 
explanation of what had occurred ; and fearful of losing 
their passage by legal detention, should they lodge infor- 
mation of the circumstances, (a neglect of justice which 
Dr. Bard subsequently regretted,) proceeded on their way 
to the ship, which awaited their arrival. 

The ensuing voyage was long and boisterous ; it however 
terminated safely, and after a five years' absence, restored 
him again to his anxious and longing parents. The emo- 
tions excited by their first interview were such as fixed 
the minutest circumstances of it indelibly on his memory ; 
and he often repeated, almost with the feelings of the mo- 
ment, the occupations, appearance, and even dress, in 
which he found them. To his father, independently of pa- 
rental affection, this meeting was peculiarly interesting. 
Tt had completed his favourite plan ; one which he had 



83 

pursued under difficulties and embarrassments, with a per- 
severance proportioned to his anticipation of its success. 
He was now to judge of its results : and we may ima- 
gine with what eager anxiety, under such circumstan- 
ces, a father would meet a son, and make every word 
and movement supply deductions either of hope or fear. 
On which side these preponderated, it is easy to conjec- 
ture ; how far they were realized, subsequent events will 
&how. Of the eagerness with which they were sought, a 
sufficient proof is afforded in the fact, that his father and 
himself separated not until the next morning's sun had 
arisen ; wasting the night in conversation, in giving and re- 
ceiving such pleasure as a good father, and a grateful son 
can alone receive or bestow. 

But in this meeting, besides his immediate family, there 
was another individual present, whom, even then, he did 
not regard with indifference, and on whom he soon felt 
that his future happiness depended. This was his cousin, 
Mary Bard, already alluded to as the eldest of two orphan 
sisters, and then resident in the family of her indulgent 
uncle. Of her personal beauty at that period, Dr. Bard, 
in his animated manner, often drew, from fond recollec- 
tion, a pleasing and attractive picture. A less doubtful 
evidence of it may be found in the early likenesses which 
are preserved of her, and the remains of a calm and 
dignified beauty which she retained to a very advanced 
age. Perhaps its influence on him was increased by the 
happy associations which then surrounded it, and the 
peculiar sensibility of the heart at such periods. But 
whatever be the cause, certain it is, he dated from that 
evening the commencement of an affection which wavered 



84 

not through the long and chequered period of fifty-five 
years of joy and sorrow. 

That he did not come prepared to meet her with indif- 
ference, is indicated by a letter of rather an earlier date, 
which derives some interest from its bearing on this hap- 
piest circumstance of his life. It is introduced by another 
from his cousin William, a young man whom disappointed 
affection had driven into the army, and who was then with 
his regiment in England. 

Samford-Hall, Feb. 22, 1766. 
My Dear Sam, 

You lay me under great obligations for the 
concern you express at my unhappiness ; though, at the 
same time, it is a little ungenerous to torment me by that 
ironical speech, with regard to our dear cousin, telling 
me to live still in hopes of being happy with her. Be- 
lieve me, my dear Sam, I have long given that over. Some 
other person, (perhaps yourself,) is designed for that bles- 
sing, whilst I am reserved for fortune to frown upon. For 
my future ease, I must endeavour to forget her ; how far 
I shall succeed in that, God only knows. After mustering 
all my philosophy, I am still as discontented as ever. I 
am, indeed, very unhappy, and what is worse, believe I 
shall ever remain so.* 

Yours affectionately, 

W. BARD. 



* Of such feelings, recklessness of life was the natural consequence. 
His personal exposure in the field attracted general notice, but hastened, 
as he appeared to wish, his fate ; and estranged from his country, as well 
as happiness, he fell in the attack on Bunker's-hill, June 16, 1775, under 



85 

The casual suggestion of his own success, or, perhaps, 
the natural, though unacknowledged, desire of succeeding 

such circumstances of bravery as drew forth the following testimonial 
to his worth, published at the time in the London papers. 

Why unlamented, should the valiant bleed, 
Though not with wealth or tinsel'd honours crown'd ; 
Who by brave acts seek glory's deathless meed, 
Whose life was blameless, and whose fall renown' d. 

Oh ! Bard, deserving of a better fate ! 

Upon thy birth no star auspicious shone ; 

Full were thy days of wo, though short the date, 

And fell misfortune claimed thee for her son. 

Britain, with empty praise alone, repaid 
Thy well proved valour ; oft thy blood was shed 
In her defence : yet ever, undismayed, 
You trod the rugged path where glory led. 

With his bold friend, the valiant band before, 
Like two twin lions from the mountain's height ; 
He rushed undaunted to the battle's roar, 
And urged the numerous foe to shameful flight. 

What could he more ? — he fell, with fame adorned, 
He nobly fell, while, weeping by his side, 
Bright victory the dear bought conquest mourn'd, 
As thus with faultering voice he faintly cried : 

" Praise crown the warriors by whose side I fought, 
And the dear youth who o'er them holds command ; 
TeU him I acted as a soldier ought, 
Nor shamed the glory of his valiant band.'' 

Then, when informed the hostile troops were fled, 
With strength renewed, he made this short reply, 
11 Thanks to kind Heaven, I have not vainly bled, 
Since my friends conquer, I with pleasure die." 



86 

where another has failed, awakened a new feeling of in- 
terest in his fair cousin, and prompted the following letter. 

London, March 14, 1766. 
My Dear Cousin, 

William informs me that he is in hopes 
of receiving your miniature before leaving the country. 
Now, w r ere I a man of fortune, there is no expense I would 
more indulge in than this : for thus I might, at any time, 
hold conversation with my friends at a distance ; and, by 
looking at its representation, recall to mind the mirth and 
good humour of my merry companions ; the good sense 
and learning of those who have, in my more serious hours, 
instructed me ; the honest sincerity of the friend I esteem 5 
and the delicacy and affection of the mistress I love. I 
would have too, in my gardens, alcoves and temples dedi- 
cated to the memory of my best friends, and adorned with 
their portraits. By these means, I could never experience 
the fatigue of being tired of myself 5 for thus I could always 

Thus, like the fearless Theban, he expir'd ; 
A fate bewailed, yet envied by the brave : 
The muse with tender sympathy inspir'd, 
Thus pours her sorrow o'er his silent grave. 

O thou, from whom, disdaining abject fear, 
Each glowing bosom caught congenial flame ; 
Who still surviv'st, to me for ever dear, 
Thy loss I mourn, yet triumph in thy fame. 

Perish the thought, nor let me thus profane, 
Thy well earn'd praise, with one ill-omen' d sigh ; 
All mean distrust is sacred honour's bane ; 
The brave may fall, their name can never die. 



87 

enjoy the choicest company, without the interruption of 
idle intruders. But, my dear cousin, these arcadian no- 
tions ill agree with the profession I have chosen, in the 
practice of which I shall see but little of my friends, ex- 
cept at such times as, by their illness, they fill me with 
concern : however, I hope by your goodness, and my sis- 
ter's affection, I shall now and then enjoy an hour or two 
free from anxiety ; which, being rendered doubly agreea- 
ble by the unlimited confidence of friendship and affec- 
tion, will repay me amply for the fatigue and uneasiness 
of the day. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

That this connexion was the one his father would have 
chosen, may well be doubted. Mutual dependance was 
a bar to their present union ; and postponed engagements, 
he regarded, as unfavourable to his son's professional suc- 
cess. Indeed some degree of disappointment may be ima- 
gined, as a letter to his son had already indicated a match 
in which fortune, joined with beauty, and still more im- 
portant requisites, was not, in the opinion of a partial 
parent, too high a prize for his returning son to aspire to. 
Whatever views of this kind he might have had, were 
dissipated by his son's early preference of his cousin ; and 
whatever doubts mingled themselves with that engage- 
ment, were soon removed by her warm and devoted at- 
tachment, which not only secured his son's happiness, but 
added greatly to his own. On the score of worldly pru- 
dence it was, indeed, hardly to be commended : the ex- 
penses of young Dr. Bard's education, had exceeded one 



88 

thousand pounds, and contributed to the difficulties in 
which a thoughtless, or speculative, temper had already- 
involved his father. These debts, it was doubly his duty 
to labour to discharge ; and so strongly was this obliga- 
tion felt, that this early engagement, perhaps, saved him 
from the decision of a most painful question, how far he 
ought to have gone in the sacrifice of personal inclina- 
tion to relieve the necessities of a parent, incurred 
through his means, and for his advantage. But while 
to the eye of prudence all was thus dark in the pros- 
pect, light and cheerfulness rested upon that which love 
and resolution pictured. Dr. Bard entered at once upon 
the exercise of his profession, in partnership with his fa- 
ther, devoting himself to it with his native enthusiasm, 
heightened by all the motives which could operate on the 
feelings of a son or a lover. For three years, he drew 
nothing from the profits of their joint business, which 
amounted to near fifteen hundred pounds per annum, be- 
yond his necessary expenses, allowing all the remainder, 
that he might justly have claimed, to go towards the liquida- 
tion of debts which, in honour, he regarded as his own. 
Considering himself, after that time, as exonerated from all 
other claim than that of gratitude, he proceeded to ful- 
fil his engagement with his cousin, and trusting to Provi- 
dence, and his own exertions, the marriage took place 
upon the slender stock of one hundred pounds ; " wisely 
calculating," as he often observed with a smile, " that his 
wife's economy would double his earnings." Nor in this 
lover-like conclusion can it well be said, that he was mis- 
taken. In his own temper thoughtless, though not profuse. 



89 

money would hardly have accumulated in his possession : 
what his industry and enterprise acquired, needed some 
more careful hand to hold : and that hand he found in the 
one that was then bestowed upon him, whose strict, though 
liberal economy, may justly be said to have " doubled all 
his store." 

With this lady he was destined to pass a period equal 
to the ordinary duration of human life ; and in its joys and 
sorrows, to find her, to use his own expressive language, 
" a steady, judicious, and affectionate friend, and a dear 
and excellent wife. 55 

Running in debt for what their slender means could 
not furnish, they established themselves in their new resi- 
dence, giving to it that air of respectability which an en- 
lightened economy knows how to throw over the narrow- 
est circumstances 5 and proceeded to their task of industry 
with all that spirit of cheerful exertion which the feelings 
of youth and happy minds excite. 

Dr. Bard's early formed plan of a medical school was 
not abandoned by him on his return from abroad ; but in- 
stead of the youthful assistants originally proposed, he 
had the higher credit of exciting older and abler men to 
the task. Within a year after his return it was organized, 
and united to King's College. His associates were, Drs. 
Clossy, Jones, Middleton, Smith, and Tennent ; while to 
him, by common consent, then but in his twenty-eighth 
year, was given the most responsible and influential de- 
partment of the Practice of physic. Thus early did he 
begin to repay his debt of education to this literary in- 
stitution, which for forty years he continued to serve, as 

12 



90 

circumstances demanded, in almost every branch of ex- 
perimental and medical science ; and, for the last twenty 
years of his residence in the city, as Trustee, and Dean 
of the faculty of physic. Medical degrees were first con- 
ferred by this school in 1769, when, upon occasion of 
their public delivery, the honourable task was assigned 
to. Dr. Bard, (due rather to his zeal and ability, than to 
his years,) of addressing the students, and through them 
the public, upon this novel and interesting occasion. 
The effect of this address may be adduced as a proof of 
the persuasive eloquence with which he always urged a 
good cause. 

On the sixteenth of May, being the day of its annual 
commencement, he delivered, before the officers of the 
college, and the governor and council of the province, a 
" Discourse upon the duties of a physician," taking occa- 
sion, from his subject, to enforce the usefulness, or rather, 
necessity of a public hospital, and the propriety of its im- 
mediate establishment, as the most efficient means of re- 
lief to the suffering poor of the city, and of instruction to 
medical students. The address concluded in these words : 
" Nor is this scheme, I believe, so impracticable, nor the 
execution of it so remote, as at first sight it may appear 
to be. There are numbers in this place, whose fortunes 
enable them, and whose benevolence would prompt them, 
liberally to contribute to so useful an institution. It wants 
but a prime mover, whose authority would give weight to 
the undertaking, and whose zeal and industry would pro- 
mote it. Such an one, I hope, ere long, to see rise up 
among us ; and may the blessing of the poor, and the ap 



91 

plause of the good, be the reward of his exertions." So 
convincing were his arguments, or so well-timed the ap- 
peal, that it aroused the individual upon whom it was, per- 
haps, most intended to operate. Sir Henry Moore, gover- 
nor of the province, as soon as the address was closed, 
expressed warmly both his admiration of the speech, and 
his patronage of the plan. Dr. Bard's zeal was too warm 
to allow that of others to cool. At the college dinner 
vhich ensued, he publicly presented to the governor a 
subscription paper previously prepared, who headed the 
list with the sum of two hundred pounds ; in which he 
was followed with proportional liberality by the members 
of the council, and other gentlemen present. 

This discourse Dr. Bard immediately published, and de- 
dicated to the individual, whose "very generous warmth," 
as he terms it, so well seconded the earnestness with which 
it had been delivered. The result of this appeal was a 
victory which would have been flattering even to age and 
reputation, and Dr. Bard looked back to it with those fee- 
lings of honest exultation which always accompany suc- 
cess in honourable and benevolent designs, and espe- 
cially when atchieved under circumstances of disadvan- 
tage. 

In the preface, he speaks of the plan as having already 
engaged the attention of many benevolent persons, who 
only waited some happy occasion to push it with success. 
" Such an occasion," says he, " now presents itself; and I 
trust the generous and public-spirited, of every denomi- 
nation, will enter warmly into the design, and promote it 
with that zeal which should actuate the breast of every 



92 

man who thinks it his duty to relieve the necessities of 
his fellow-creatures, or promote the happiness of society." 
The subscription thus honourably begun, was rapidly ex- 
tended ; and the city authorities, at length, added to the 
number of its patrons. With the funds thus collected, 
three acres of lofty ground, in the upper part of the city, 
were purchased for a location, and a suitable structure 
erected. When on the point of completion, Dr. Bard 
was doomed to witness the failure of the whole plan, in 
the destruction of the building by an accidental fire. Ex- 
hausted funds, and political dissentions, for a long time 
forbade any farther attempts 5 so that this noble design re- 
mained unaccomplished until the year 1791. From that 
period, until his retirement, Dr. Bard continued to be its 
visiting physician, in the performance of which duty, he 
has often told the writer, he never omitted a single day. 

The history of this institution is foreign to the purpose 
of this memoir ; it is sufficient to observe, that it has con- 
tinued to be an honour alike to those who founded, and 
those who have managed it : exhibiting, at the present day, 
a union of zeal and disinterested benevolence, which, in 
such charities, seldom outlives the enthusiasm of their first 
establishment : and, while it equals any other institution, 
either here or in Europe, in the relief it affords to suf- 
fering humanity, it is believed to surpass them all in the 
peculiar facilities it offers as a practical school of medi- 
cine. 

Among other obligations which professional men in 
New-York owe to this discourse, is the exposure it con- 
tains of the unreasonable and dangerous practice which 



93 

then prevailed of their charges being grounded solely on 
the medicine given to their patients ; thus unjustly de- 
priving them of any remuneration for that wherein alone 
the value of their services consisted : and exposing them 
to the constant temptation, if not absolute necessity, of 
prescriptions often needless, and sometimes hurtful. This 
bold expostulation probably tended to hasten the change 
which, on this point, soon afterward took place. 

As this discourse is now rare, an extract may not be 
uninteresting, as conveying an idea of its style and spirit. 
In addressing the students, he begins with this appalling 
assertion, " Be not alarmed, young gentlemen, if I set out 
with telling you, that your labours can have no end : for, 
would you acquit yourselves to your conscience, your 
lives must be spent in rendering those of others long and 
happy." Of that false reverence for antiquity, which had 
so long trammelled inquiry, and served as a cloak to in- 
dolence, he speaks with the feelings of an independent 
thinker. " Why," says he, " should we give more to those 
times, than they attributed to themselves ? Read the wri- 
tings of the wisest among the ancients, and they are rilled 
with modesty and diffidence : why then should we ascribe 
to them infallibility and omniscience ? I see no reason 
why time should lessen our abilities ; and, surely, expe- 
rience must increase our knowledge." 

In this same year his father's plan of retirement was 
renewed, accompanied by some speculative scheme of 
trade at Hyde Park ; this appears to have been so con- 
trary to the judgment of his son, as to have drawn from 
him the following expostulation. 



94 

New-York, Octobers, 1769. 

Honoured Sir, 

Since writing the enclosed, I have again 
read your letter, and do not know that I have ever found 
so much difficulty in determining upon any subject. 

The earnest desire I have of seeing you independent, 
my affection for my brother, who, I most sincerely wish, 
could be settled among us, and my own longing desire to 
be doing something for myself, have all pleaded strongly 
in its favour ; yet, upon the whole, my fears have got the 
better, and I cannot help thinking it too great a risk for 
persons in our circumstances to run. 

By selling, you may secure a moderate fortune and an 
easy life : by keeping the farm, you may, perhaps, die 
richer, but then you run the risk of living oppressed with 
a heavy load of debt, for, perhaps, the better part of your 
days. I do assure you, sir, I write in pain ; and it hurts 
me to oppose what you seem so much to desire. I am 
afraid too, lest you should be offended, and think me ob- 
stinately attached to my own opinion, or indifferent about 
your happiness, and that of my brothers and sisters. But 
I flatter myself you know me too well to entertain any 
such suspicion ; if I err in my judgment, my sincerity is 
the only apology I can make for it. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

In consequence of this opposition the scheme was aban- 
doned ; and father and son continued three years longer 



95 

in that constant intercourse, which their partnership re- 
quired, and their affection rendered agreeable : but it 
was a source of more happiness than profit. Though 
the reputation of young Dr. Bard, (a title which he con- 
tinued to bear till he had passed his grand climacteric,) 
had greatly extended his father's business, it still proved 
insufficient to meet the needful expenses of two establish- 
ments. The cost of living was much increased ; the re- 
putation of such men as Jones, Clossy, and Middleton, 
maintaining their practice, kept up that professional aris- 
tocracy which, in physic as in the law, renders the ascent, 
even of talent and industry, slow and arduous. 

Under these circumstances Dr. Bard deemed it expe- 
dient, in the year 1772, to propose the alternative of his 
own removal, or that of his father, from the city. Had 
the former been chosen, it was his intention to have esta- 
blished himself in Philadelphia, where family friends, and 
his own reputation, would have secured him a favourable 
introduction. 

Dr. John Bard, who had long projected a removal from 
the city, now decided upon it ; and after building at Hyde 
Park a country residence, long noted for the courteous and 
liberal hospitality which reigned within it, retired to his 
maternal inheritance. His city establishment was pur- 
chased by his son, who entered at once into his father's 
circle of practice, out of the profits of which he continued, 
for five years, to allow him a large proportion. 

The few following letters, incidentally preserved, throw 
some light on this period of his life ; and the feelings with 
which, in common with most good men, he regarded the 
approaches of that painful, but necessary contest, which 



96 

shortly ensued between the colonies and the mother 
country. 

It appears, also, by the business details of these letters, 
that his father's resolution could not withstand the temp- 
tation which his removal had renewed, to the prosecution 
of his former mercantile scheme, and which seems to have 
involved both his son and himself in much pecuniary em- 
barrassment. 

New-York, March 10, 1773. 
Honoured Sir, 

My brother arrived here three days ago, 
and made us all very happy by the account he brought 
of your health and spirits, and the encouraging prospects 
of your business. But when I reflect on the ease and sta- 
bility it would give to your affairs, I own I cannot help 
wishing, and most sincerely too, that you could meet with 
a good purchaser. How comfortable would it be, to be 
once independently settled in your retirement ; and how 
safe and happy would you feel from the reflection, that 
none could break in upon your repose ; that though you 
might never wake again, your sheepfold would be safe, 
and no intruding hand could disturb the peace and tran- 
quillity of your little flock, or drive them from the shelter 
which you had reared for their protection. These thoughts 
have great weight with me, and it is both my wish, and 
that of my brothers, that if you possibly can, you will, in 
this way, secure to yourself, my mother, and sisters, peace 
and independence. What surplus Heaven and your pater- 
nal care shall provide for us, we shall gratefully receive ; 
but we wish it not, if, to procure it, what is so much more 



97 

essential must be put to the least hazard. I could not 
have been more sensibly disappointed than I am, in being 
deprived of the pleasure of seeing you this winter ; nor is 
there any thing for which I envy my brother more, than 
the happiness he has lately enjoyed in paying you a visit ; 
a thing I so ardently desire, and have so distant a pros- 
pect of enjoying, that I almost regret the very success 
which puts it out of my power. 

My business hitherto has equalled my expectations, nor 
do I believe it will decrease ; but it will be long before I 
shall acquire a fortune from it: a circumstance which 
will very much bound my wishes, and render me content 
with xery moderate possessions : for I seek wealth only 
to secure happiness ; and, ever since you left us, I have 
placed mine in following you : to spend as much of life 
together as nature, moderate circumstances, and unam- 
bitious pursuits will allow. But I must indulge this thought 
no farther, for I find it only puts me out of humour with 
my present situation, which, after all my grumbling, is, I 
confess, much better than I deserve. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

New-York, Aprils, 1775. 
My Dearest Father, 

I am most sincerely sorry to con- 
firm the afflicting reports, which, before this, I suppose you 
have heard. It is but too true, that the sword of civil dis- 
cord is at length unsheathed, and the horrors of that worst 
of wars begun among us. Mr. Seagrove writes from Bos- 
ton, that on Tuesday a body of eight hundred troops 

13 



98 

marched suddenly from Boston, in the night, with intention 
to seize a magazine which had been prepared at Con- 
cord, or, perhaps, the delegates, who were there met. On 
their way they encountered a company of minute-men 
exercising, and ordered them to disperse, who refusing 
to do so, the troops fired twice over their heads, and, as 
they still stood their ground, a third time, among them, 
and killed eight; upon which the country was imme- 
diately alarmed by the firing of cannon, and the troops 
intercepted on their return. General Gage sent out a 
thousand men, under the command of Lord Percy, to their 
assistance 5 these two bodies united, and made a kind of 
retreating battle into Boston. Many officers were woun- 
ded ; and between two and three hundred private men 
killed. Seagrove adds, that preparations were making, 
on both sides, as if it was to be very soon renewed. 
What number of the inhabitants was killed is not known ; 
but all agree their loss must have been considerable. 
Other letters make the number of the troops killed to be 
near five hundred ; but I suppose the truth is not exactly 
known 5 enough, however, is known, to fill every humane 
breast with the deepest affliction. We have had some 
commotion among us on the occasion, though, on the 
whole, we are remarkably quiet ; and I am not without 
hopes, shall remain so, through the interposition of those 
who have interest among the common people. I have 
ever preserved a moderate and temperate course, and 
you maybe assured, shall, on this occasion, rather increase 
my caution than lessen it. God, and God only, knows 
where these unhappy disputes will end ; it can hardly, 
however, be hoped they will subside before we have felt 



99 

heavily the inconveniencies of them. Yet it is not impos- 
sible but that the resolution and spirit which have now 
been shown by our neighbours, may convince the British 
ministry that they have not much to expect from America 
by force; and in that way, will never get a revenue out of 
us which will pay the expense of collecting. God send 
that it may be so, and that we may again see our former 
happy days of peace and quiet. 

Your affectionate son, 

S. B. 

New-York, April, 177 5. 
My Dear Father, 

I enclose you the last papers, by which 
you will see we daily expect the arrival of troops ; al- 
though Major Shene asserts, this is contrary to the pre- 
sent intention of the ministry. Be that as it may, our 
congress, to be provided against the worst, have sent to 
request that general Worster, with about two thousand 
men he has under his command, will march into this pro- 
vince, and encamp upon Harlem commons. These prepa- 
rations are alarming, and some time ago my mind was 
greatly agitated at the gloomy prospect ; but at present I 
find it settled into that calm which I have ever found to be 
the consequence of inevitable necessity. I have fixed on 
the part I am determined to act, and, taking care at least 
to have virtuous intentions, shall leave the event to Provi- 
dence. 

Your affectionate son, 
ILtfC.* S. B. 



100 

BUT to return to events of a more domestic nature* 
Notwithstanding the reputation acquired by such early 
proofs of ability, Dr. Bard, as already stated, continued 
for many years to struggle with the " res angusta domi. n 
Upon his buoyant spirit, however, it produced but little 
impression; as by one of his letters of the date of 1773, 
we find him uniting in the formation of a literary club? 
which, like those of modern days, mixed up a little lite- 
rature with a great deal of conviviality. Among its other 
members, were Dr. Cooper, the president of the college, 
Kempe, attorney-general, Bache, Jones, Middleton, and 
Sherbrooke ; names once familiar in this city, though now 
fading from the remembrance of a younger generation. 
In the following year, he added to his existing duties, la- 
bours of a less doubtful character in delivering a public 
course of chemical lectures.* In this undertaking he 
reaped, as every man will at some time or other of his 
life, the benefits of early diligence. Of Dr. Cullen's lec- 
tures he had made and preserved a faithful and minute 
abstract. These now afforded him, for his course, an 
ample and connected basis, which, in that comparatively 
crude state of the science, was no small assistance, and 
enlarged by reading, and illustrated by experiment, for 
which, even to the close of life, he retained an unusual 
fondness, rendered his lectures both novel and instruc- 
tive. Though they probably constituted the eompletest 
chemical course which had been delivered on this side of 

* It appears, by the college records^ that his appointment to this lecture- 
ship took place as early as the year 1770, on Dr. Smith's removal ; but 
it seems doubtful whether it were, until this period, more than nominal. 



101 

the Atlantic, they still seem not to have met sufficient en- 
couragement to induce their repetition after the second 
year. But without, in this matter, impeaching the sci- 
entific curiosity or patronage of our fellow-citizens, a suf- 
ficient reason for this neglect may be found in that ha- 
zardous course on which they themselves were then pre- 
paring to enter ; and which absorbed all minor interests. 
The materials for that great and untried experiment of 
forcible resistance to the power of Great Britain, were 
then ripening and preparing ; and men viewed its issue, 
not only with painful, but with fearful anticipations. In 
these Dr. Bard had his share, and judging from the re- 
sult, we may now say, that his fears overbalanced the 
danger : but this perhaps, is an unfair criterion. When 
the storm is gone by, it is easy to point out the path of 
safety ; but amid the lowerings of that political tempest, 
and the moral contention of opposing obligations which it 
aroused, it was no easy task to choose the course either of 
safety or of honour. Men, of minds equally pure, were 
divided, and the motives of love of country might, at that 
period, be as fairly claimed by those who sought to avert, 
as by those who laboured to bring on, a scene of civil dis- 
cord, of which no wisdom could foresee the termination, 
and of which no patriotism, at that time, imagined that in- 
dependence was to be the result. On such occasions, it 
is not easy to discern, as Bacon words it, " a busy nature 
from a willing mind." Nor is it fair, on this point, to im- 
pute to those who then sided with government, an opposi- 
tion to that happy system of things which has since taken 
place ; a system acknowledgedly not then aimed at, and 



102 

which the guiding providence of Heaven, it may be said, 
alone atchieved. The impossibility of these colonies long 
continuing under the dominion of Great-Britain, is now, 
and, we think, might then have been self-evident ; but to 
those even who perceived and acknowledged this, the 
particular time of that separation must ever have been a 
question of nice solution, and resting on points that touch- 
ed neither their honour nor their patriotic attachment. 
These observations are premised, not so much from their 
bearing on the character of Dr. Bard, as due, in the opi- 
nion of the writer, to that of the many upright and honou- 
rable men who could not, on this occasion, at once shake 
off their reverence for the obligations under which they had 
been born, and educated, and prospered-, and as a debt of 
justice that should now be paid to their memory, when po- 
litical rancour has been exchanged for those better feel- 
ings which the common interests of their common country 
have inspired. Of Dr. Bard, however, it must be acknow- 
ledged, that as his intimates were among men whose situa- 
tions attached them to government, so his prepossessions 
rather inclined him in its favour. The native tenderness 
of his heart rendered him averse to all acts of violence ; 
so that, with Cicero, he was ready to exclaim, on the ap- 
proach of domestic discord, "mihi pax omnis cum civi- 
bus, bello civili utilior videtur." Moreover, his debt of 
education, his many friends and long residence in Great 
Britain, had taught him that there was in it so much of 
learning and virtue, of science and wisdom, of all that 
adorns and dignifies humanity, and makes life desirable, 
that an unwillingness to regard them in the light of ene- 



103 

mies may be pardoned to him, on the score of good feel- 
ing, if not of sound judgment. 

As the prospect darkened, Dr. Bard anxiously sought to 
fulfil his first of duties, that of securing the safety of his 
wife and children, by placing them at a distance from the 
scenes of violence with which the city was daily threa- 
tened. Hyde Park he naturally chose for their retreat, 
and towards the end of the year 1775, placed them there 
under his father's roof, he himself remaining in New- York 
until the great question of peace, or war, should be de- 
cided; many hopes being, even then, entertained of re- 
conciliation, both from the ample powers of the royal com- 
missioners, and the well known pacific disposition of at 
least one of their number. 

During this period of their first painful separation, his 
letters to his wife were frequent. The following are se- 
lected, as giving a picture of peace and domestic affec- 
tion, doubly pleasing from the turbulence of the times in 
which they were written. They are prefaced by an ex- 
tract from an earlier letter, in a more cheerful tone. " I 
cannot tell you," he says, writing to his sister, "how 
sweet, and beautiful, and good, our children are ; but if 
these commissioners will but make peace, you shall come 
and judge for yourself. In the meantime, think them all 
you wish them to be, and you will come near doing them 
justice. Let me hear from you," he adds, " a little of- 
tener or I stop my hand ; for I suffer no body to be much 
in my debt in the letter way, except my wife, whom 1 
treat as some merchants do their debtors — trust them 
more, to induce them to pay a little." 



104 



JVeto- York, Dec. 15, 1775. 
Never fear, my dear wife, the time will come again, 
and is, perhaps, at no great distance, when we shall once 
more enjoy each others society ; and look back, even upon 
our present losses and vexations, not only without regret, 
but with some degree of satisfaction, as serving, by compa- 
rison, to heighten our enjoyments, and teach us to make a 
just estimate of health, and home, and peace. Until these 
sad times we have had our share of domestic felicity ; but 
uninterrupted enjoyment sometimes renders us so unwise 
and ungrateful, that we overlook the greatest blessings, and 
forget the good things in our possession, in too anxious a so- 
licitude at some trifling want. I believe this has not been 
remarkably the case with either of us ; yet I confess, I am 
not altogether guiltless. Painful separation has now taught 
me more wisdom ; and, for the future, I believe, with you, 
that, rich or poor, if we can but enjoy our home in peace, 
we shall be satisfied and happy. Nor shall it be long be- 
fore we make the experiment ; for if the times do not soon 
accommodate themselves to us, we will to the times. For 
a few months to come, some good purposes, 1 think, may 
be answered by remaining as we are ; but whether in that 
time the state doctors settle the nation or no, I am deter- 
mined to settle myself, nor longer sacrifice real and sub- 
stantial happiness, which is within my reach, to future ex- 
pectations, which perhaps, may never be realized. 

Affectionately yours, 

S. B, 



105 



New-York, July 22, 1776. 

I thank God I enjoy my health, but I cannot say I en- 
joy any thing else. I am quite tired of this lonely life, 
and what is the worst of it, see but little probability of it 
soon mending ; the town is at present little more than a 
garrison of New-England and New- Jersey troops, who are 
fortifying it on all sides, so that if any are sent here by 
government, it will certainly become a scene of blood and 
slaughter. May Heaven avert so great a calamity, and 
once more, in mercy, restore us to the blessings of peace. 

Last evening I attended the remains of poor Mrs* 
H. to their peaceful mansion. She died not only with 
fortitude and resignation, but with gladness and joy. 
How effectually does such a death cheat of their sting 
all the calamities and misfortunes of life. There are few 
things we cannot bear with constancy of mind, when we 
have the consolation of reflecting that they will not last 
long. We have only, therefore, to extend our views to 
this termination, and prepare to meet it as she has done, 
and pain and sickness, with all the other evils of life, va- 
nish before us. As to what lies beyond, after all the 
wrangling disputes with which the Christian world has 
been curst, here we must end at last, that he who most 
effectually cultivates the mild and benevolent affections, 
not only diffuses most happiness around him, and partakes 
of it himself in this world, but best fits his mind for the 
enjoyment of it hereafter. Courage, therefore, my dear 
Mary : we have nothing to do but to study and practise 
the means of the truest present enjoyment to secure to 

14 



106 

us future happiness, or at least to render death truly the 
physician of our ills, and a sovereign remedy for that por- 
tion of evil which we cannot avoid : and the more we re- 
flect on this subject, the more we shall acquire that stea- 
diness and constancy of mind, which, of all things, is most 
necessary to conduct us happily through life. 

I have no news to tell you. People in general seem 
waiting in anxious suspense to know where Great Britain 
will strike her blow : some pretend to say, but it is all 
guess work. Our committees have stopped their hands, 
with regard to imprisonment. They find it will not forward 
the cause, as the converts they make in this way are not 
much to be depended upon. No one will be forced into 
the service ; so that, with regard to us, as individuals, po- 
verty will probably be our greatest misfortune, and it will 
be hard, indeed, if, in mutual love and industry, we can- 
not find a remedy for that. 

My little garden is in full luxuriance ; it looks really 
beautiful, but alone, I cannot enjoy it. Oh ! how 1 long 
for the time when we shall chase our little folks around 
the walks, and together cultivate and adorn it. But this is 
happiness, as yet, I must not expect. In the meantime, 
let me hear from you by every opportunity, and in that 
way, let us, as far as we can, lessen the pain of absence. 
Kiss my dear children for me ; it is impossible to tell you 
how often I think of them and you : make me amends by 
telling me you are not behind hand with me in that point. 

Affectionately yours, 

S. B. 



107 



New-York, April 4, 1776. 
t will keep my promise, and thank you too, my dear 
Mary, if you will be always as punctual as you have this 
time been. You cannot conceive the pleasure I received 
in reading your long and affectionate letter, after having 
called three times for it before the post arrived. My im- 
patience to hear from you, seldom allows me to wait until 
it comes in ; and I am sure you will not again disappoint 
me as long as these unhappy times shall deprive me of 
the one only pleasure which exceeds hearing from you, that 
of being with you. Believe me, you do yourself injustice 
with regard to your talent for writing; your style and 
manner are perfectly agreeable, at least they are so to 
me, and 1 would not change one honest expression of love 
and affection, for the finest turned period in the world : 
and therefore the concluding paragraph of your last let- 
ter has more beauties to me than any sentence I ever 
read before : and I have received more pleasure from 
your description of my little fellow cutting his stick, than 
when I have heard Shakspeare's words from Garrick's 
mouth. Sweet little fellow ! I see him this moment before 
me, and I hear my Susan's sweet tongue, and my heart 
overflows with tenderness whilst I view my Mary in the 
fondest attitude of a mother, with her little namesake in 
her arms. Thank Heaven, these are sources of happiness 
which depend not on fickle fortune ; and, be we rich or 
poor, they will ever afford us, whilst we love one another, 
the most delightful sensations. Do not make yourself un- 
easy at not returning to your home so soon as you could 
wish, but let us wisely employ the present in a patient ac- 



108 

quiescence to what we cannot help. I purpose not to de- 
termine on any thing, until the arrival of the commission- 
ers : the negociation with the congress will soon tell us 
whether we are to have a long war or a speedy reconci- 
liation. I cannot positively say when I shall see you, but 
you may safely trust to my impatience for its being as 
soon as possible. God bless you. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

New-York, June 1, 1776. 
My Dear Mary, 

I returned last night from Long-Island, and was 
made happy in finding your letter of the 28th waiting my 
arrival ; it was this expectation which consoled me during 
a long and tedious journey, and quickened my pace, as I 
drew near the end of it. But how different w r ere my sen- 
sations from what I have formerly experienced, when re- 
turning home, after a week's absence. I was, indeed, im- 
patient to arrive and hear from you ; and when I did, found 
myself relieved from a weight of pain, and anxiety : but 
after this, instead of that lively joy and exquisite gratifica- 
tion, which few can feel, and none describe, all was blank 
and void : no cheering smile, no soothing caresses, no sweet 
prattle, to make me forget my fatigue, and almost wish 
another absence, for such another meeting. Instead of 
repining as formerly, at the business which calls me out, 
I now eagerly inquire what is to do, and in company, and 
employment, endeavour to conceal from myself my wants 
and my regrets. But what poor substitutes are these, and 
how little relief do they bring ! In vain do I change the 



109 

scene, and wander about from object to object ; instead of 
gratification, I meet with a repetition of disappointment, 
and am but the more convinced there is no sufficient 
happiness for me, but what I can participate with you 
and my sweet little flock. But it will not do to indulge in 
such reflections, as we must, for the present, be separated ; 
and I am sure they do not enable me to bear absence the 
better. 

I have been much pleased with my visit to M 's ; 

you would be delighted with the country and neighbour- 
hood. Every thing looks strong and substantial without, 
and within I saw evident marks of peace, mutual affec- 
tion, and content ; which is saying, in three words, every 
thing this world can afford. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

New-York, August 10, 1776. 
It is now a full fortnight since I have had the greatest 
pleasure I can enjoy under my present circumstances, — 
that of hearing from you. Thursday next will, however, 
gratify me in this respect, and in one week after, I will 
clasp you to a heart which, in every pulsation, beats love 
and tenderness to you and my dear children. Who would 
be without the sensations of a husband and a parent, that 
does not prefer the insensibility of a clod to the feelings 
of a man? The very pains and anxieties of these happy 
stations are accompanied with a certain consciousness of 
duty which softens them down, nay, which endears them 
to us ; and we would no more part with them, than a sol- 
dier would part with his honourable wounds, or the vir- 



no 

tuous man with those difficulties and struggles he mu^t 
endure to maintain his integrity. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

To these privations, and to the still greater ones which 
threatened him, Dr. Bard opposed a mind, weak, it may 
be said, through warm affections 5 but strong in native re- 
solution, and fortified by the principles and consolations 
of religion. 

Among his papers of this period was found the follow- 
ing short poetical effusion, suggested, apparently, by the 
breaking up of his little establishment, in the society and 
comforts of which he seems to have found all that his 
heart desired. 

Oh happiness, thou fleeting, fluttering thing ! 

No sooner caught than, lo, thou 'rt on the wing I 

Where, where, alas ! from mortals dost thou fly ? 

Or must we only hope to hold thee when we die ? 

Yes, His that hope inspires our greatest bliss, 

Supports in sorrow, cheers us in distress; 

Strengthens our souls to meet all ills below, 

By hopes of thee where joys eternal flow. 

Oh God ! direct my erring mind to things above, 

Teach me to place my bliss in faith, and hope, and love. 

Finding all hopes of reconciliation vain, and the torch 
of discord already lighted, he abandoned the city pre- 
vious to Sir William Howe taking possession of it, joined 
his family at Hyde Park, and after various removals, took 
up his residence in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury, 
New-Jersey. Whether the place was selected with a 



Ill 

view to the experiment he there made, or only sugges- 
ted it by the facilities it offered, is not known ; but soon 
after his establishment, he attempted the manufacture of 
salt from sea-water, (an article then much wanted,) turn- 
ing, with pliant ingenuity, the versatile powers of his mind 
to this new employment. From want of capital, or, per- 
haps, of experience, failure ensued in this proposed source 
of income, and he quickly found himself without the means 
of support, in a situation where his professional talents 
were so little needed, or so poorly rewarded, as to be in- 
sufficient for the maintenance of his now numerous fa- 
mily. 

Under these circumstances, the imperious call of ne- 
cessity, and the paramount obligation of providing for 
those whom Providence had made dependent on him, 
forced him to look to the little property he had accumu- 
lated in the city he had just abandoned, and which he 
heard, by report, was wasting in his absence. The mili- 
tary license also, which pervaded that part of Jersey, ren- 
dered it an insecure residence ; and in the year following 
his removal, he returned to the exercise of his profession 
in the city of New- York. Obtaining a pass from the com- 
manding officer, he came within the lines, in company with 
his friends, Mr. John Murray, of this city, and Andrew 
Elliot, Esq., uncle to the late Lord Minto. 

His house he found, like most of those that had been 
deserted, in other and no friendly hands ; and the exercise 
of his profession it was still more difficult to resume. 
The government viewed him with suspicion, and his for- 
mer intimates with a prudent coldness. His father's re- 
sidence within the American lines, and his brother's hold- 



112 

ing a commission in the continental army, seemed to 
justify this caution ; while the moderation and candour 
of his character, which led him to perceive and acknow- 
ledge merit on which ever side engaged, were, in those 
days of hostile zeal, misconstrued, or unappreciated. Res- 
ting, however, on his conscious integrity and professional 
skill, he went on cheerfully without a single patient, until, 
as he himself informed the writer, he was reduced lite- 
rally to his last guinea. In a melancholy mood, walking 
down the Broad-way, his mind filled with painful forebo- 
dings, a wife, two sisters, and five children, all dependent 
on exertions he had no opportunity to make, he was ac- 
costed by a former friend whom he had not before met ; 
this was Mr. Matthews, then mayor, of the city, whose well 
known loyalty and official standing setting him above all 
low suspicion, he not only addressed Dr. Bard with his ac- 
customed cordiality, but immediately, on some slight pre- 
text, requested his professional attendance at his house. 
On such a mind as Dr. Bard's, this language of kindness 
and honourable confidence made a deep impression, and 
he ever retained a grateful recollection of it. By the 
warm interference of the same gentleman, he was soon 
after saved from a military arrest, which would have re- 
doubled all his former difficulties. His frequent letters to 
his American friends, had given colour to a malicious accu- 
sation preferred against him of maintaining a treasonable 
correspondence. The commandant was just issuing an or- 
der for his arrest, when Mr. Matthews entering, heard the 
name of Dr. Bard ; he immediately interfered, claimed 
him as his family physician and friend, pledged himself 
for the falsehood of the charge, and calling on Dr. Bard. 



113 

gave him an opportunity to refute it. This was easily 
done by the exposure of the suspected correspondence, 
which was such as to leave no room for future suspicion, 
and to establish him, in the opinion of the most worthy, as 
a man of moderation and a high sense of honour. To 
suspicion now succeeded confidence ; his talents and pro- 
fessional skill rapidly extended his business, and where- 
ver he found a patient, by his kindness and sympathy he 
made a friend. It may be allowed to one who has had 
experience of that watchful solicitude which characte- 
rized him at the sick bed, to say, that in this he was a mo- 
del to his profession. His disregard of self, and anxious 
tenderness for his patient, originated a debt that could ne- 
ver be paid but in returns of gratitude ; and accounts for 
the fact of the permanent and grateful recollections that 
were entertained of his professional services twenty years 
after his retirement to the country. 

While these qualities gained him business and friends, 
his scientific character gathered around him a literary cir- 
cle, with whom, after the labours of the day, he generally 
passed the evening. The late Bishop Moore, his old 
friends, Mr. Kempe, attorney general, and Lindley Mur- 
ray, the grammarian, and his new intimates, Dr. Nooth, 
Superintendants of the hospital, and Dr. Michaelis, the son 
of the learned commentator, were his most frequent and 
acceptable guests. With the first named gentleman the 
intimacy then formed, continued until death : with the 
others it was kept up long after their dispersion, by a 
correspondence both friendly and scientific. 

Careless of literary reputation, Dr. Bard used his inti- 
macy with eminent men for the simple purpose of present 

15 



114 

instruction or entertainment : he not only employed no 
arts to extend it, but even neglected to preserve those re- 
cords that would now have been a source of interest to 
others, and reputation to himself. Thus have perished, 
in his hands, the letters of Franklin, Hunter, Cullen, Mon- 
ro, and Nooth. * 

The return of peace between countries thus united in 
language and sentiment, Dr. Bard, in common with all 
good men, hailed with pleasure : to him, however, it was 
not without its anxieties, as the patriotism and honour of 
his conduct were again to undergo a scrutiny from heated, 
if not unfriendly judges. Notwithstanding the advice of 
many who urged his removal, he trusted again to the up- 
rightness of his motives, and was not mistaken. His coun- 
trymen knew how to distinguish between moderation and 
indifference; and Washington, "the father of his coun- 
try," by selecting him as his family physician, marked the 
opinion he entertained both of his character and medical 
skill. 

On his domestic happiness, a new enemy now broke in : 
out of six children, four perished by a rapid and untimely 
fate ; two were buried in the same grave : one, a child of 
so much loveliness and promise, as to have called forth, in 
the anxious mind of its mother, the usual apprehensions 
of an early death. The disease which thus desolated 
this happy family, was the scarlatina, in its most virulent 
form. Children, parents, nurses, and servants, were all 
seized with it ; and the delirium which rapidly ensued, 
added to the horrors of an infection, which already res- 
trained or disabled their friends from giving assistance. 
Two children were hardly snatched from the grave, and 



115 

recovered by slow degrees. As the mother's care ceased 
to be necessary, her health and spirits sunk under the 
greatness of her loss and her exertions ; and Dr. Bard 
was called to forget the feelings of the father in those of 
the husband. A deep melancholy settled upon her mind, 
which threatened almost the extinction of reason. Alive 
only to this great duty, he immediately gave up all at- 
tention to business, and for near a twelvemonth, devoted 
himself to her recovery with an assiduity and faithful- 
ness which was fully repaid by success. The effect, 
however, of these painful scenes, seems to have long con- 
tinued, as they permanently impressed upon her counte- 
nance a shade of thoughtfulness, which sometimes bor- 
dered upon melancholy, and greatly increased her natural 
fondness for quiet and retirement. 

The following letters, written during this.period of sick- 
ness, give some idea of the weight of affliction which was 
thus able to bear down a mind possessed of more than 
usual firmness. 

New-York, Sept. 24, 1783. 
How shall I tell you, my dear Sally, of our calamity, with- 
out wounding you too deeply ? In my last, I acquainted you 
with the indisposition of my dear children, which I then 
flattered myself would have ended in the recovery of all, 
except, perhaps, your poor little Sarah ; but the night be- 
fore last has cruelly robbed us, not only of her, but of 
our most dear and amiable child, my soft-eyed Harriet. 
The scarlet fever finished what the meazles had begun ; 
and to add to our distress, our dearest William, and Mary, 
still continue very weak and feeble. 1 trust, however, 



116 

that God, in his mercy, will sparq them to us, and grant 
us that perfect submission and resignation to his will, 
without which we can never again be happy. 

Under these afflicting circumstances, you may well sup- 
pose we want the aid and consolation of your tenderness 
and affection ; but I do not know how to ask it. The dis- 
ease is a severe and infectious one ; it has almost gone 
through my family. I at present have it, though in a slight 
degree ; and my sister Susan has conveyed it from us to 
my father's ; and, although severely ill, is, I hope, in no 
danger of life : so that I fear to expose your constitution 
to it. As to Mrs. Barton, if she chuse to run the risk, it 
will be a great comfort to see her. 

Your letter of Sunday gives a most delightful account 
of your uncle Anthony's blessed situation. I sincerely 
pray to God that our afflictions may work the same happy 
effect upon our minds. Tell him, if alive, that Polly 
thanks him for his affectionate remembrance, and sincere- 
ly joins him in his pious wish. Take care of your health, 
my dear girl ; and the moment I have a home to invite 
you to, I will no longer suffer a separation. God bless 
and comfort you. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. 13. 

October 7, 1783. 
My Dear Sally, 

I am sorry our letter missed the stage, 
although it would have afforded you as little comfort as 
what I am now to write. Our distress is not yet at an 
end : I very much fear, that before its termination, ano- 



117 

ther bitter draught will be added to our cup of affliction. 
Our dear little William, I thank God, though he mends 
very slowly, still, I flatter myself, grows rather better ; but 
our sweetest little prattle Mary is so ill, that I confess my 
apprehensions greatly exceed my hopes. Almighty God, 
who, I firmly believe, directs all these events, distressing 
as they are, to wise and benevolent purposes, will, I trust, 
grant us aid to support ourselves under them : particular- 
ly your poor afflicted sister, who, as yet, can admit of no 
consolation but from the hope of her dear child's reco- 
very ; which comfort I can only say I sincerely pray she 
may obtain. God bless you. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

(From Mrs. Barton.) 

New-York, October 12, 1783. 
It is allotted to me, my dear Sally, to inform you that 
our sweet little Mary is out of her misery. She died on 
Friday morning at one o'clock. I had the melancholy of- 
fice of closing her dear eyes. Your brother's behaviour 
on this occasion was truly Christian and exemplary ; sur- 
rounded with distresses of every kind, he never lost his 
fortitude and resignation of mind, but endeavoured to 
support and comfort your poor afflicted sister with every 
pious argument, and the most endearing behaviour. In- 
deed such multiplied and complicated calamities seem al- 
most too much for mortals to bear ; time alone can erase 
such scenes from their remembrance. A few hours be- 
fore our lovely Mary was interred, Mrs. Bard quitted that 
painful house, never to enter it again. Susan, William, 



118 

and myself, accompanied her to Mr. Elliott's, where we 
shall remain until they set off for New-London* Your 
brother has quite done with business, and means not to 
engage in any for the winter, to enable him to dedicate 
all his time and attention to his family : and I am convin- 
ced nothing will contribute more to restore your lister to 
her lost peace of mind, than his company and tender soli- 
citude for her happiness. 

Your affectionate aunt, 

S. BARTON. 

New^York, November 1. 

My Dear Sally, 

Your kind aunt, Mrs. Barton, left us yes- 
terday for Belleville ; like Marseilles' good bishop, she has 
passed unhurt through all the dangers of anxiety, fatigue, 
and infection. We are greatly obliged to her for this 
visit, in which she has afforded us all the aid and consola- 
tion which could be derived from her cheerful and active 
disposition, inspired by the tenderest friendship. 

Your last letter to your aunt is the first I have ventured 
to read to your afflicted sister since the commencement 
of our heavy misfortunes. We did not want proofs of 
your tenderness and attachment, nor should we have hesi- 
tated to make use of them, but from the dread of exposing 
you to a cruel disease which has proved itself so highly in- 
fectious and malignant. You know how deeply your dear 
sister is affected by such calamities as ours, even when 
they have fallen greatly short of our late heavy visitation. 
I will not, therefore, attempt to conceal from you the 
greatness of her sorrow, which is fully proportionate to 



119 

its afflicting source ; yet I am not without good hopes 
thatt, by a tender and assiduous endeavour, I shall be able 
to recall her mind from the dear objects of her melancho- 
ly to the interest and happiness of her family, and again 
to occupy her home with something like tranquillity and 
peace. At least she has promised me to make the at- 
tempt, and it shall be my chief care to keep up so good 
a resolution, and to second her endeavours, I mean 
therefore to spend this winter in recollecting myself, and 
consoling your sister ; and with this view have furnished 
myself with some excellent books for our retirement at 
New-London. As for you, let not our misfortunes, which 
I know sit heavy upon you, interrupt you in prosecuting 
the agreeable plan you had chalked out for yourself this 
winter; but enter into it with as much cheerfulness as you 
can, that when we meet in the spring, we may all once 
more be capable of happiness. For myself, I am deter- 
mined to be as happy as I can ; and, I thank God, I feel 
myself wonderfully supported, so much so, that I am fre- 
quently ready to accuse myself of insensibility, when I 
compare my feelings with my dear Mary's. 

I can now give you the comfort of knowing that our 
dearest William is daily mending, since we have been at 
Mr. Elliott's : he yesterday rode to town on his sister's 
poney, whilst I walked with no unpleasing sensations by 
his side. Adieu. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. BARD, 



120 



New-York, Nov. 15. 

Once more, my dear Sally, do we begin, I thank God, 
to look upon our dear children with the cheerfulness of 
hope, rather than with the gloom of despair. I dare not 
yet, however, pronouce them out of all danger ; but I hope 
my fears, rather than their illness, is the source of my ap- 
prehensions, and that a few days more will entirely dissi- 
pate them. Your dear sister supports herself as well as 
I could expect ; and I do not doubt but, in the calm quiet 
of our retreat this winter, both her mind and my own will 
regain their accustomed tranquillity : a very few weeks 
will carry me out of this city, God knows whether ever to 
return. Tell Dr. De Normandie, that I thank him for his 
friendly letter. I have consulted my friend, Dr. Nooth, 
upon a plan of travel and improvement for Dr. D. ; he 
recommends Vienna as a place where the French, Latin, 
and German languages may be studied under great ad- 
vantages. It is the second school of medicine in Europe : 
the inhabitants of the rank of merchants, bankers, &c. 
hospitable and kind to strangers ; and living so cheap that 
all these advantages may be procured at the moderate ex- 
pense of sixty or eighty pounds sterling a year. 

Your aunt Barton will show you a pleasing proof of 
young MitchelPs sympathy. 

S. BARD. 

{From Mrs. Bard to Mrs. Barton.) 

January 24. 
I have received your affectionate letter, but how shall 
1 answer it ? — the subject that was once my delight, is now 



121 

my misery, and yet I can think and write on no other. O, 
my dear aunt, I know I have your pity and prayers too, and 
what can you or any one else do more for me ! but my 
peace of mind is, I fear, gone for ever in this world. I am 
continually looking and longing for dear objects that I 
must never see again. I need not tell you of my dear 
husband's goodness in every thing; but he is particularly 
kind in indulging me, to the utmost of my wishes, in my 
retired manner of living. I have seen no one out of my 
own family but Mrs. Foxcraft and Lady Mary. In the day 
I walk out with him, when the weather will permit; and 
our evenings are spent without interruption, in serious 
and devotional reading. 

This is the way, my dear aunt, I would wish to spend 
the remainder of my stay here, which, if I dare, I would 
pray might not be long. God give me patience to await 
his good time. 

Your affectionate niece, 

MARY BARD. 

The pleasing proof of sympathy above alluded to, was 
a monody upon the death of the children, by Dr. Samuel 
Mitchell, then a student in Dr. Bard's office ; the conclu- 
ding lines of which convey a just and feeling picture of 
the father's resignation : 

He only dropped the tear o'er children dead : 
Which frail humanity is forced to shed ; * 

Assured henceforth they rest in heaven, and sharp 
What far exceeds an earthly father's care. 
Through faith resign'd, he met the fatal blow. 
And kis?ed the rod that laid his children low.. 
16 



122 

The following short prayer, from among his papers, may 
be brought in confirmation of the above, as evincing that 
he drew his consolation from the living fountain of reli- 
gion, " the most invigorating sentiment," he was used to 
say, " of the human heart," 

" O, Father of mercies, and God of all comfort, our only 
help in time of need, and sure refuge against all adversity ; 
sanctify, we beseech thee, these our calamities and sor- 
rows, with which thou hast been pleased to visit us, to our 
improvement in virtue and true religion. May they bring 
us to a sincere repentance for all the errors of our past 
lives ; may they strengthen our hope in thy mercies, and 
our faith in thy promises : and so teach us to number our 
days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy 
and heavenly wisdom, which not only brings with it peace 
and comfort in this mortal life ; but leads to everlasting 
joy in that which is to come." 

The ensuing winter was spent by Dr. Bard, as he had 
purposed, in restoring calmness to the mind of his wife, by 
all the means which anxious affection could prompt ; and 
with such success as enabled him to return, in the sum- 
mer of 1784, to his professional duties in the city of New- 
York, leaving her at the house of her uncle, Dr. De Nor- 
mandie, in Burlington, New-Jersey. Of the intercourse 
which lightened this second separation, the following let- 
ters remain. 

New- York, Jlpril 20. 
My Dear Mary, 

I thank you for being so attentive as to 
relieve my anxiety on your account, by your letter of 



123 

Saturday. I beg you will not fail to write me by every 
conveyance, for I find that nothing but frequent letters will 
keep me contented and easy. I have already had some 
painful dreams ; and although free from all superstition in 
this respect, yet I confess, that when you and my dear 
children are the subject of them, my philosophy is not 
always proof against the painful impressions they will 
leave behind. Remember that you have all my happi- 
ness in charge ; take care of yourself, then, for my sake, 
and of our children, for both our sakes : give yourself up 
to the guidance of your friends, and yield to their kind 
solicitude for your happiness. Be willing to be made hap- 
py, and leave the rest to us 5 and I have no doubt but that 
even joy and gladness, (those strangers to our dwelling,) 
will again brighten our days. 

For this time farewell, and may that good Being in 
whom I trust, and who, I firmly believe, has directed all 
these sorrows for our ultimate good, preserve and com- 
fort you. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

Burlington, June 5, 1784. 
My Dearest Mr. B. 

I have just received your letter : what 
shall I say to you ; or rattier, what shall I do for you to 
make you as happy as I wish you ? If the tenderest affec- 
tion and warmest gratitude for all your kindness to me 
were sufficient, you would need nothing more : but I am 
sensible that alone will not do, and I will promise you to 
endeavour to do still more ; for you deserve every thing 
from me, and shall not find me ungrateful. 



124 

I agree with you, that Heaven, for wise purposes, has 
afflicted us. I think I begin to feel already the good ef- 
fect of our late distresses, and that I am taught by them 
more submission and content. But then I feel a pleasure 
I cannot express at every approach, even of a single day, 
that I make nearer my last home ; not so much, I hope, 
because I cannot bear the evils of this life, as for the hope 
I have of happiness in the next. Among other thoughts 
that delight me in this, is the prospect it gives me of 
meeting again what was so dear to me here, and of our 
being all united, never more to be separated. Do not 
think this the effect of gloom ; in the end, it must produce 
cheerfulness. To approach every day nearer to what we 
wish, rather than what we fear, must be a source of com- 
fort. You have indeed done every thing for me that mor- 
tal can do, and I have no doubt, with the blessing of God, 
that we shall yet see together not only tranquil, but hap- 
py days. Take care of your health, which is dearer to 
me than my own ; you have my first and last prayers for 
the continuance of it, and every other blessing. I have 
nothing more to say, except that I will love and pray for 
you as long as I live. 

Yours affectionately, 

MARY BARD. 

New-York, June 12, 1784. 
In imitation of your good example, my dear Polly, I sit 
down to write to you the evening before the stage goes, 
that I may not again give pain to you, to w r hom I always 
wish to give pleasure and content. Be satisfied, that I am 
never so happy as when thus employed, and that I never 
miss an opportunity without suffering more from it than 



125 

you can do. Once more, then, take courage, and be not 
ready to surmise ill, when so many and probable reasons 
may happen to disappoint us. Heaven, for wise, and, no 
doubt, merciful ends, has inflicted on us real calamities ; 
let us not add to their weight by groundless apprehen- 
sion ; but, by a willing, and, if possible, a cheerful sub- 
mission to its dispensations, a uniform and steady obe- 
dience to its commands, endeavour to render it propitious 
for the future. We have great blessings still left us ; let 
us not cast them from us, nor. by discontent, which is, in 
truth, ingratitude, render the mercies of our Maker of 
no effect. But you confess to me your spirits are better 
than they were : I most humbly thank God for it, and 
sincerely pray that he will aid your endeavours to re- 
cover that peace and tranquillity so necessary to my hap- 
piness, and that of our dear children, that without it, nei- 
ther they nor I can expect again to see good days ; and 
with it, I had almost said, we can never see bad ones. 

For myself, I never was in better health. My business 
is fully equal to the maintenance of my family, but not 
enough to deprive me of the full enjoyment of your society 
if you were with me ; so that no wonder if I impatiently 
long for it. That God will bless you, and restore you to 
me in health and safety, is my constant prayer. Kiss our 
dear children for me, and love them and me well enough 
to endeavour to be happy for our sakes, and I am content. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 



126 



New-York, July 7, 1784. 

If you knew, my dear Polly, the happy effects your let- 
ters have upon me, you would not curtail them. Believe 
me, they not only raise my spirits, but seem also to im- 
prove my judgment. My head is clear, and my heart 
easy, when I have lately been told that you and my dear 
children are well and happy : but when disappointed of 
hearing, I am timid, apprehensive, and impatient ; so that 
until I receive my letter, I can do nothing well, unless it 
be to watch the stage. Have pity on me, therefore, and 
as long as you are absent from me be still as good as you 
have been, and never let me suffer the pain of disappoint- 
ment. 

I am glad to hear my little boy wants so many clothes ; 
it is a proof he is not idle, but makes good use of his time. 
Kiss the dear fellow for me, and ask him what plaything 
I shall bring him when I come. Tell my dear Sue that 
I hear very good accounts of her industry, and desire of 
improvement. Nothing can give me more pleasure ; for 
my great ambition centres in her and her brother be- 
coming amiable, respectable, and useful in life. » I have 
not the least doubt of your affection ; yet I love to be re- 
peatedly assured of it : and among all the proofs you have 
given me of it, I have one still to ask of you, and that is, 
to take care of yourself, and strive to be happy. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 



127 



New-York, July 17, 1784. 
Solomon was a fool when he estimated the worth of a 
good wife by such a bauble as a ruby ; I say she is more 
valuable than meat, drink, or clothing : and corn, wine, 
and oil, are of less efficacy to make glad the heart of man, 
than her smiles. Your affectionate letter, my dearest 
wife, has fully proved this to me, and in one moment 
chased away all the demons of anxiety which have infes- 
ted me for this fortnight past. It told me that all my 
treasure was in safety, and proved that you love me with 
a solicitude, in which, (although it may now and then oc- 
casion you uneasiness,) I will own I triumph and rejoice. 
But oh ! how much does the consciousness that I possess 
such blessings, add to my fears of losing them ! All hap- 
piness, I find, makes cowards of us, and we grow appre- 
hensive in proportion as we are happy ; at least this I find 
to be my case ; and in spite of my reason, and your con- 
stant attention, my imagination will frequently paint the 
hidden dangers by which, in one moment, all my bright 
prospects might be darkened. 

If it do not rain, I am to have a large company to take 
coffee with me this afternoon ; so that you see I strive to 
divert my chagrin as well as I can : but it will not all do ; 
they are very clever folks, to be sure, but they are not my 
wife and children, without whom nothing has any charms 
for me. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 



128 

New-York, August 10. 
My Dear Polly, 

On Tuesday evening, at farthest, I shall 
enjoy the pleasure of seeing and embracing you : you 
shall not again be disappointed ; but let whatsoever busi- 
ness offer, I will make of it a sacrifice and free-will offer- 
ing to love and friendship. Your letters have given me 
infinite pleasure, and made up almost my sole enjoyment 
in my solitude ; for although in a crowd all day, with- 
out you and my children, I am alone. I flatter myself 
too, that I discover marks of returning tranquillity, which 
is the only foundation upon which I can build my hopes 
of happiness. Go on, therefore, my best and dearest 
friend, and by securing it to yourself, give happiness to us 
all. I promise you, on your return, by way of welcome, 
a neat house, and good cheer ; willing servants, cheerful 
friends, and a happy husband, whose heart is full of love 
and tenderness. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

Of his religious feelings on the restoration of his wife's 
health, the following prayer, found among his papers, 
seems to be the expression; it is however, without date. 

" Oh God, whose chastisements are mercies, and whose 
severest dispensations are sent in loving kindness, sanctify, 
we beseech thee, the illness with which thou hast been 
pleased to afflict my dear wife, to her and my improve- 
ment in true religion and all virtue. We acknowledge 
thy justice, we confess our manifold sins and wickedness. 



129 

and with hearts truly penitent, we implore thy forgiveness. 
And now that thou hast been graciously pleased to turn 
our mourning into gladness, accept, O Lord, our grateful 
acknowledgments of this, and all those great and singular 
blessings with which thou hast crowned our lives : it "is 
our unfeigned purpose to devote that portion of time thou 
shalt still permit us to enjoy, to thee, and to the good and 
happiness of our family, friends, and neighbours : in which 
resolution, we earnestly pray for the assistance of thy 
Holy Spirit, without which we can do nothing that is good 
and acceptable unto thee. Grant these our prayers, O 
Lord, for the sake of our Saviour Jesus Christ, in whose 
name, and through whose merits only, we presume to 
make our supplication unto thee. Amen." 

To the memory of Dr. De Normandie, spoken of in the 
foregoing pages, a passing tribute is due. He was uncle, 
by marriage, to Dr. Bard ; and highly esteemed by him as 
a man of great natural acuteness and professional skill. — 
A Swiss emigrant, he was the representative of the an- 
cient and honourable family of the same name at Geneva, 
who, from the time of their ancestor, the friend and patron 
of Calvin, had continued to enjoy the highest dignities in 
that small, but venerable republic. Among the family 
records submitted to the author of the present memoir, 
he found an interesting correspondence maintained by 
the grandfather of this gentleman with the first king of 
Prussia, touching the claim of that monarch to the neigh- 
bouring canton of Neufchatel, on the failure of its native 
line of princes, and throwing some additional light on the 
grasping policy of the newly royalized house of Branden- 
burg. 

17 



130 

At the period of Mrs. Bard's residence with her uncle, 
he had just returned from a visit to the seat of his ances- 
tors. Among the many interesting records of this visit, 
the family still retain a miniature likeness of the philoso- 
pher of Ferney, presented to him by Voltaire himself, 
who appears to have taken a lively interest in the pros- 
pects of America, and even talked of returning with Dr. 
De Normandie, as he said, " to lay his bones in it,'' an ex- 
pression, observes the letter-writer "peculiarly expres- 
sive, as he does not appear to have an ounce of flesh on 
them.' 5 

" The Journal of his Travels" he prepared for publica- 
tion, together with a " History of the Origin and Progress 
of the Political Dissentions in Geneva." They still, how- 
ever, remain in manuscript. Upon the retirement of Dr. 
Bard to Hyde Park, Dr. De Normandie soon joined him, 
drawn by that attractive influence which was sufficient, in 
the course of a few years, to gather around that spot every 
descendant and near connexion of the family. 

After a few years, of both bodily and mental imbecility, 
he died A. D. 1803. 

About this period, Dr. John Bard had deeply involved 
himself by imprudent speculations in mining and iron- 
works. On this occasion, he addressed to his son a let- 
ter, of which the following is the commencement. 

Belvale, Nezv-Jersey. 
My Dear Son, 

It was my intention, when I had the plea- 
sure of your company here, to have communicated to you 
a particular statement of my affairs ; but the time we 



131 

were together was so wholly taken up in a temporary fe- 
licity, as left no room for this graver task. What i then 
omitted, I shall now supply. I view my affairs, so far as 
they are encumbered with debt, with great anxiety and 
pain : and. old as I am. being blessed with a happy con- 
stitution. 1 find myself still disposed to exert myself in the 
most efficient manner to free my estate from this encum- 
brance : which, if I could do. I should, I think, leave the 
world with composure and ease." 

The appeal was not in vain — his son had not forgotten 
his early debt of education, and immediately applied the 
whole of his accumulations, amounting at that time to 
five thousand guineas, to his fathers relief: preferring this 
application of it to the more tempting speculations then 
opened to capitalists by the sale of confiscated estates. 
He accordingly relieved his father from his load of debt. 
and. by his persuasions, induced him to return to the exer- 
cise of his profession in New-York, in which he continued 
until the year 1797 ; when his son's projected removal de- 
termined his own : and he retired, for the last time, to close 
a long and chequered, but cheerful life, in the shades of his 
early retirement. 



DR. BARD'S character having been displayed in the 
light of a son and husband, it remains but to show that the 
duties of a parent were fulfilled by him with equal tender- 
ness and judgment. Out of ten children, but two had been 
spared to him : to these a third was afterward added, not 



132 

only the child, but the companion and solace of his old 
age : and to their education he now devoted most of the 
leisure which busy days and broken nights afforded him. 
During the first absence of his eldest daughter from 
home, when about fourteen years of age, on a visit to the 
early friends of her family at Philadelphia and Burling- 
ton, her father found time, from arduous and almost unre- 
mitted duties, to maintain with her a frequent correspon- 
dence. The following letters exhibit a pleasing picture 
of the animated tenderness of his manner. 

New-York, June 25, 1784. 
I cannot deny myself, my dear Sue, the pleasure of ac- 
quainting you with the terms in which your Mamma speaks 
of you in her last letter. " She is a charming, industrious 
girl, &c." These are her expressions, which, I doubt not, 
will give you as much joy as they do me. I have no fear 
of making you vain, by letting you know you have merited 
and obtained your mother's approbation ; but, on the con- 
trary, am convinced, that I shall only add a spur to your 
industry, that you may continue to deserve it. Indeed, the 
approbation of the good, and the esteem and affection of 
our friends, are the only human prizes worth contending 
for ; and as I do not doubt but that you think so, I choose 
to give you the greatest pleasure a good and virtuous 
mind can enjoy ; which is to know that you have suc- 
ceeded, where you are the most anxious to do so. Go on, 
my sweet girl, in your virtuous and commendable endea- 
vours ; continue to gain your dear mother's approbation, 
and I will ensure you that of the rest of the world ; for 
you are so happy as to have, in her, a parent who is as 



133 

quick sighted to your faults as to your merits ; and who 
loves you too well to commend you when you do not de- 
serve it ; and too justly, to suffer you to go without your 
reward, when you do. That, my dear child, you may de- 
serve it, and that God may add his blessing to that of your 
parents, is the daily prayer of 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

New-York, July 8. 
I am very sorry to find you are troubled, my dear child, 
with an inflammation of your eye ; a blister may be ne- 
cessary, and then balls and parties must be entirely given 
up. So much self-denial you have not been accustomed to, 
and I hope it will not now be necessary — yet, I trust, you 
will be able to practise it whenever it is so. Indulged as 
you have been, I have still flattered myself that I have 
discovered in you so much good sense and fortitude, that 
you will, on all occasions, be able to bend your will and 
inclination to the dictates of reason and prudence. You 
are now past childish years ; and remember, it is no lon- 
ger what you wish, but what is right and fit, that must in- 
fluence your conduct ; nor will you have any chance of 
continued happiness, until, by constant habit, you have so 
accustomed yourself, on all proper occasions, to submit 
your inclinations, that it is not only easy, but pleasant so 
to do. The consciousness of doing right, is the great 
sweetner of human life : it lessens our sorrows, heightens 
our joys, and banishes from the bosom those most uneasy 
companions, regret and repentance. 



134 

Since your agreeable letter from Philadelphia, I have 
received one from Dr. Franklin, wherein he speaks very 
handsomely of you, and regrets he had not more of your 
company. If you go to town before you return, call again 
upon him. 

Adieu, my dear girl ; practise the lessons of wisdom, 
virtue, and prudence, to the establishment of your own 
happiness, and you will do all I ask of you to promote 
mine. 

Affectionately yours, 
I S. B. 

Mew- York, July 2 1 . 
Your Mamma, my dear girl, has desired me to answer 
your letter, which I undertake with the greater pleasure, 
as I can, at the same time, do what is most agreeable to 
me, give just and deserved praise to my child, — culti- 
vate such sentiments, — they are a rock upon which you 
may safely build your happiness. A steady mind, prepa- 
red for all events, which neither grows giddy in prospe- 
rity, nor despondent in adversity, not only supports itself, 
but is a pillar against which all its connexions lean ; and 
by which the weaker are supported. Though this cha- 
racter is generally expected from man, it is an equal orna- 
ment to women ; and to do them justice, frequently pos- 
sessed by them in at least as grefat a degree. The courage 
of women is not, indeed, often displayed in great and 
hazardous enterprizes, but in what is harder, a patient 
endurance of pain and adversity : I have frequently had 
occasion to admire their constancy. Look up to your 



135 

aunt Campbell, aunt Barton, and Miss Polly T. ; with what 
a cheerful resignation do the two first bear an adverse 
fortune ! with what an independent spirit does Mrs. Bar- 
ton exert herself ! and what steady friendship and noble 
disinterestedness does the last display in her attachment to 
your aunt ! Such, my child, are the virtues I wish you to 
acquire ; and these are the examples I wish you to imi- 
tate. Above all things, avoid the weak and false notion 
that these things are inconsistent with the delicacy and 
softness of the female character ; true courage and genu- 
ine sensibility most frequently accompany each other. 
The one is afraid of nothing but doing wrong ; the other 
shrinks from nothing that is right or benevolent. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

New-York, August 25. 
I am always happy, my dear Sue, in reading your let- 
ters, but was made particularly so by your last; which 
enclosed me those from my dear little boy, whom I longed 
to hear from. I am pretty well pleased with the account 
you give me of your studies ; but should have liked it bet- 
ter, had you been able to have included in it some valua- 
ble history, from which poetry would have been a delight- 
ful relaxation. You do well to begin with Homer, the 
father of poetry, whose imagination has so exhausted na- 
ture, as to leave his successors little more to do than to 
borrow or copy from him. When you return home, you 
will never want suitable books, as we have been very 
successful in storing our Society Library with near two 
thousand volumes. 



136 

In your playing and singing I shall be very glad to dis- 
cover some improvement. Among the productions com- 
plimentary to the President, I wish you would select the 
most delicate and best set, and make yourself mistress of 
it : as he is my patron as well as patient, I should choose 
to hear you sing his praises ; and more particularly as his 
virtue and merit set flattery at defiance. Tell Dr. De 
Normandie that the President's complaint continues to 
amend, so that I have not the least doubt of effecting a 
perfect, and, I hope, a speedy cure. It will give you plea- 
sure to be told that nothing can exceed the kindness and 
attention I receive from him. 

I am very glad to hear that you are an early riser: per- 
sist in it : turn the practice into a habit, and you will reap 
from it a thousand advantages. It is almost a useless tau- 
tology to tell you how tenderly I love you. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

The allusion in this letter to the illness of General 
Washington, recalls to mind some circumstances related 
by Dr. Bard of that event. It was a case of anthrax, so 
malignant as for several days to threaten mortification. 
During this period, Dr. Bard never quitted him. On 
one occasion, being left alone with him, General Wash- 
ington looking steadfastly in his face, desired his candid 
opinion as to the probable termination of the disease, ad- 
ding, with that placid firmness which marked his address, 
" Do not flatter me with vain hopes ; I am not afraid to 
die, and, therefore, can bear the worst." Dr. Bard's an- 
swer, though it expressed hope, acknowledged his appre- 



137 

sions. The president replied, " whether to-night, or twen- 
ty years hence, makes no difference ; I know that I am in 
the hands of a good Providence." 

Dr. Bard, sen. was then called in consultation, at the sug- 
gestion of General Washington, and by the blessing of that 
;i good Providence" in which he trusted, his life was pre- 
served to his country, at a period when it never more 
needed the counsels of his calm prospective wisdom. 
The result of this illness was an intimacy with his pa- 
tient, which Dr. Bard justly felt proud of. It continued 
unbroken until the removal of the seat of government to 
Philadelphia, an event which he much lamented, for many 
and obvious reasons. From that period, I believe, they 
never met : General Washington's sudden death prevent- 
ing a visit which Dr. Bard, upon his retirement from prac- 
tice, was preparing to make him. 

But to return to the correspondence with his daughter. 

New-York, September 5. 
On Saturday, at farthest, my dear girl, I shall see you, 
and have the greatest pleasure a parent can have — that of 
embracing a child he loves and approves. Your letters, 
during your absence, have given me real pleasure, be- 
cause they have manifested an affectionate and docile 
temper, desirous to give pleasure, and anxious to im- 
prove : and, if I am not misinformed by partial friends, 
your general conduct has been such as to gain the love 
and esteem of your friends and acquaintance. Judge, my 
dear child, from the pleasure my approbation, I doubt not 
gives you, of the pleasure I feel in having it in my power 
to bestow it : and I flatter myself I need call up no other 

18 



138 

motive than this to stimulate your exertions in every lau- 
dable pursuit. The love of virtue, and an honest ambition, 
have alone been sufficient to impel men to achievements 
more than human ; but when to these we add the greatest 
of all delights, that of making those happy whom we most 
dearly love, as there is no joy so great, so there is no dif- 
ficulty we cannot surmount to obtain it. I have great 
pleasure, my sweet girl, in the affectionate assurances you 
give me of your constant inclination to gratify me, and 
not one shadow of doubt of your sincerity. This makes 
me confident of your success in any attempt within the 
compass of your ability ; for there are few things can re- 
sist steady perseverance, prompted by such a desire. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

(TO MRS. BARD.) 

Nezv~York, September 8. 
By a slip of paper I inserted into my letter to Dr. De 
Normandie, on Thursday, I acquainted you, my dear Polly, 
of the death of my dear mother. That evening we at- 
tended her remains to the grave, and deposited them in 
their silent and peaceful mansion. An event so long ex- 
pected, and so manifestly for her relief, was not lamented 
by us with excessive sorrow. Even my father and sisters 
have borne this final separation with minds rather soften- 
ed by tenderness and affection, than depressed by sorrow 
or regret ; and I have the satisfaction to see them more 
tranquil and composed than they have been for a long 
time past. 



139 

I am sorry my dear Susan has been absent on this oc- 
casion ; she must learn to bear the death of her friends, 
and to meet her own ; and she can never have, on this im- 
portant subject, a more instructive, or a less painful lesson. 
You will not, however, suffer it to pass without improve- 
ment to her; and I flatter myself she begins to think and 
reason too justly not to make very suitable and profitable 
reflections. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

Kind and judicious praise, as these letters indicate, was 
the medium by which Dr. Bard operated on the minds of 
his children ; and seldom did a father succeed better in 
awakening a warm and generous enthusiasm to deserve it. 
In all their early performances they were sure to receive, 
in his animated commendation, a sufficient recompense 
for their exertions ; and the applause which at first arose 
from parental fondness, became an excitement to what 
might be truly deserving of it. 

u The earliest recollection," says his younger daugh- 
ter, "which I have of my beloved father, is associated 
with the affectionate caress and animated praise he be- 
stowed upon me, when, placed upon his knee, I repeated 
to him Thomson's Lavinia, which I had committed to me- 
mory during one of his short absences from home : it left 
a very strong impression upon my mind." 

Such was the parental discipline by which he guided the 
tender minds of his children. As they grew older, he be- 
came their companion and friend ; leading them to unre- 
served communication of their actions and sentiments - y 



140 

counselling them in the language of affection, and resting 
all his influence on the attachment, and almost veneration, 
which his solicitude for their happiness excited. 

But with all this fondness he united perfect candour and 
plain dealing. This gained their confidence, and ripened, 
as they grew up, into the most reposing friendship : a bond 
which advancing years, and commerce with the world, in- 
stead of weakening, strengthened, by enabling them bet- 
ter to estimate the value of such a friend and adviser. 

Between his professional avocations and such private 
duties was Dr. Bard's time divided. But amidst them all 
he still found leisure for scientific pursuits; the notice of 
which will be suitably prefaced by a few facts relative to 
the institution with which they were connected $ an insti- 
tution whose history, and, perhaps, merits, are not as well 
known as they deserve to be. 

King's College, during the revolutionary contest, posses- 
sed neither students nor teachers : its President had fled, 
its Professors were scattered, its library dispersed, and its 
buildings converted first into a barrack, and, subsequently, 
into a hospital for the soldiery. Upon the evacuation of the 
city by the British troops, its governors, anxious to wipe 
out the remembrance of this desecration, proceeded im- 
mediately* to reorganize it under new teachers, and, even- 

* This renewal of study was effected somewhat in haste, in order to 
secure students resident within the state, whom the war had debarred 
from academical instruction, and who were now looking for it to other 
sources. Among these was the honourable Dewitt Clinton ; who, as he 
informed the writer, was on his way, with several others, to Princeton, 
when these new arrangements induced them to alter their destination. 

The Professor first appointed, and on whom, for some time, the whole 
duty of instruction rested, was William Cochran, D. D. late President 
of Windsor College, Nova-Scotia. To this situation he retired ki 1789, 



^ 141 

tually, under a new and more popular appellation. By 
a law of the new republic, in May, 1784, the powers of 
its Trustees became merged in the higher title of u Re- 
gents of the University/ 5 to whom were entrusted the 
superintendence and control of all literary incorporations 
within the state. This consolidation, however, being soon 
found inexpedient, in April, 1787, upon confirming the 
royal charter, and altering its style, the legislature res- 
tored its independent Board of Trustees, of which Dr. 
Bard was, by the bill, appointed a member. 

In supplying the vacant professorships, such was the pau- 
city of scientific men in the country, that no experienced 
teacher of natural philosophy could be found. In this dif- 
ficulty, with the confidence inspired by his prompt and va- 
ried knowledge, they solicited Dr. Bard to undertake, for 
a time, the duties of that situation. To these solicitations 
he assented, and for two years laboured in it assiduously. 

A pupil of Ferguson's, he well knew how such a course 
ought to be conducted ; and, in his manuscript introducto- 
ry lecture, which lies before me, he has sketched out both 
a history of the science, and an outline of his proposed 
course, which would do no discredit to his celebrated in- 
structer. 

How far he carried his extended plans into practice, is 
not known : on one important point, his zeal went, per- 



succeeded in his department of the languages, in Columbia College, 
by, perhaps, a more critical, though not more accomplished scholar, 
the venerable Peter Wilson, LL. D. Dr. Cochran was warmly attached 
to Dr. Bard ; in his recent visit to New- York, after an absence of forty 
years, he said, with tears, that when he received, upon the road, the 
news of his friend's death, it seemed as if half the motive was lost which 
prompted his journey. 



142 

haps, beyond his means of performance ; for when he pro- 
posed to bring every thing to the test of experiment, he 
was ignorant, or forgetful, of the scanty philosophical ap- 
paratus* which the college then possessed ; and which long 
continued to be a drawback to the completeness of its 
physical course. 

Conscious, however, how much he himself had to ac- 
quire ; or startled, it would seem, by his own picture of 
the arduous task which he had assumed, "to teach its 
principles soundly, to mark its improvement faithfully, and 
to enumerate its discoveries accurately," he concludes in 
these words : "I feel the weight, and enter, with unfeign- 
ed apprehension and anxiety, upon my duty ; trusting all 
to zeal and industry on my part, and to patient and dili- 
gent attention, on that of my pupils." 

With an imagination that often seduced him into theory, 
Dr. Bard had the clearest perception that all sound phi- 
losophy was laid in experiment ; and enters upon this 
discourse with a just and discriminating comparison be- 
tween the principles of Aristotle and Lord Bacon ; or ra- 
ther, between the powers of the syllogistic, and experi- 
mental logic. 

Though the appointment was but a provisionary one, 
Dr. Bard did not, therefore, relax his exertions. He was 
peculiarly fond of the studies to which it led him ; espe- 
cially physical astronomy and mechanics : and his writ- 
ten lectures which remain, evince industry of research, if 



*It is due to the college to state, not only that this deficiency is now 
supplied by the addition of much new and valuable apparatus ; but also, 
that double value is given to it, by the recent separation of the physical, 
from the mathematical chair. 



143 

not originality. In the year 1786, he resigned this situa- 
tion, in favour of the late Dr. John Kempe, of Aberdeen 5 
who, for twenty-six years, continued to fill it with great 
ability. 

The political contest once settled, Dr. Bard looked 
forward, with an enthusiasm which events have justified, 
to the rapid rise of this our western empire ; and, in 
common with all patriotic citizens, laboured for its pro- 
motion. With this view we find him, in the year 1785, 
together with his friend Chancellor Livingston, and some 
other men of science, endeavouring to form an associa- 
tion on the plan of the Royal Society of London ; "which 
may serve,-' to use the language of his address, " to trans- 
plant into this new and rising empire the discoveries and 
improvements of Europe ; and moreover, by freedom of 
inquiry, and collision of opinion, to strike out new lights 
to the advancement of sound knowledge." 

Of this fair scheme, (which in an address endorsed as 
read before them in February 1785, he states to have 
sprung from the love of science and spirit of patriotism, 
and to which he fondly predicts " a strong and vigorous 
manhood,") not a trace now remains. It was, in truth, a 
premature attempt to engraft on a new, the institutions of 
an old country ; and to turn to the advancement of na- 
tional prosperity, that which cannot exist but as the fruits 
of it, — learned and wealthy leisure. It is, however, to be 
lamented, that the association was not continued 5 it would 
have served as a nucleus, at least, about which to gather 
the slow, but progressive, accumulations of national sci- 
ence, and given unity and strength to those scientific ef- 
forts which now are weak from diffusion. The number of 



144 



such associations, in this country, is one of our greatest 
errors ; it cools the embers of science by dispersing them, 
and multiplies the danger which awaits them all, of being 
turned aside from their rightful ends into competition for 
place and honour. 

The intimacy with the late Chancellor Livingston, 
which began in boyhood, was thus ripened into friendship 
by that which, perhaps, most strongly confirms it, — union 
in honourable, but unsuccessful schemes. Similar tastes, 
and, eventually, similar pursuits, added to the pleasure of 
their intercourse ; which continued uninterrupted, until 
that event which puts a close to all human friendships. 

An early and intimate one was now severed in the 
death of John Tabor Kempe, so often already mentioned ; 
who, at the peace of 1 783, had removed with his family to 
London ; there to experience, in common with other re- 
fugees, the painfulness of protracted expectations, and to 
wear out life in waiting the slow returns of unsuccessful 
services. 

St. Margarets, May 20, 1793. 
My Dear Sir, 

After receiving such an affectionate and 
friendly letter from one I have never ceased to love and 
esteem, I cannot bear to appear ungrateful, as I have 
hitherto done, for that attention, the value of which I am 
more sensible of than capable of expressing. At present, 
it is the will of Heaven to make me feel the heavy afflic- 
tion it has laid upon me much more than I did at first ; 
and while this load of adversity is upon my mind, I cannot 
attempt to say more than that I thank you most sincerely 



145 

for that comfort and consolation I have already received 
from the kind sympathy of so valued and true a friend, 
and for the greater benefit I hope, in future, to derive from 
letters prompted by your solicitude for the happiness of 
this distressed family. To God alone I feel I must look 
for support under the difficulties of my peculiar affliction. 
I see his mighty hand in these dispensations, but have 
not yet attained that real submission and resignation of 
mind that is necessary to preserve me from error. 

I feel a wish to say a great deal more to you, but find 
both time and spirits fail me. When I can acquire a pro- 
per composure I will, if possible, write again, though it 
is an employment I have long given up. 
Your much obliged friend, 

J. KEMPE. 



AS this memoir is intended chiefly as a domestic por- 
traiture of Dr. Bard, some further particulars may be ad- 
mitted of his family arrangements. 

For some years after his marriage, the strict economy 
required by a narrow income, and a dependent and in- 
creasing family, forbade much society ; but as his repu- 
tation and means increased, his house gradually became 
the resort of the literary and scientific. His simple sup- 
pers united the freedom of domestic intercourse with the 
attractions of refined conversation. To strangers of merit 
they were ever open, and often the means of their intro- 
duction. As one of them gratefully expresses it, his house 

19 



146 

supplied to them not only " the pleasures of society, but 
the solace of a home." Whatever were the duties of the 
day, Dr. Bard generally reserved to himself the leisure of 
the evening, which he spent with an animation and zest 
peculiar to himself. The greatest professional fatigue sel- 
dom depressed his spirits ; he would shake it off by a 
hasty sleep of a few minutes, and rouse himself up into a 
freshness and vigour that surprised those who had witness- 
ed his previous exhaustion. 

During the occupation of the city by foreign troops, 
this social circle was peculiarly animated. Minds cast 
in such different moulds as the institutions of England, 
Germany, and America, gave a spirit to discussion which 
is apt to flag when confined to old friends and neigh- 
bours. The unassuming, but learned Dr. Nooth, was an 
especial favourite. The mildness of his manners, and the 
unlimited confidence reposed in his modest assertions, 
were powerfully contrasted by the impetuosity, and con- 
sequent suspicion, of German enthusiasm, as exhibited in 
the gay, but equally learned Michaelis. Nooth had been 
a varied traveller — a companion of Brydone in his cele- 
brated, though fabulous, ascent of iEtna, and an accurate 
observer of men and manners. This made him, without dis- 
play, an agreeable and instructive companion. Michaelis 
was lively, energetic, and visionary ; the boldness of his 
opinions on all points, and his errors on some of impor- 
tance, furnished constant subject for discussion, in which 
the guests joined according to their peculiar trait of cha- 
racter : and Dr. Bard, with that happy mixture of calm- 
ness of manner and warmth of sentiment, which speaks 



147 

alike to the understanding and the feelings. The return 
of peace, which restored so many friendships, still divi- 
ded some. With these friends Dr. Bard then parted, and 
never again met. The British government, with a confi- 
dence in Dr. N. he well deserved, reappointed him to the 
same station in the province of Lower Canada ; while 
Michaelis returned to his native Hesse, to end his days 
Professor at Marpurg, to evince his professional learning 
in a treatise " de Opio in Siphili, 5 ' and his friendship for 
Dr. Bard by a well merited encomium 

Temperance, exercise, and early rising, had, strength- 
ened a weakly constitution, and enabled Dr. Bard to go 
through a daily course of extraordinary professional la- 
bour. His broken rest was made up by the hasty snatches 
of it he obtained in the intervals of business ; a cheer- 
ful mind made labour sit light upon him : and a happy 
home, with the pleasures of the evening, was a recom- 
pense for all the toils of the day. It may be justly said of 
him, that his mind invigorated his body ; what he wanted 
in nerve, was made up in resolution : and his full and 
zealous devotion to the business of the moment, not only 
supported him at the time, but seems to have saved him 
from the usual effects of continued exertion. 

One of his early students thus speaks of a winter resi- 
dence in his family. " He rose at the earliest hour ; at 
five o'clock he was superintending the studies of his son 
and myself, and engaged in preparing his public lectures : 
from breakfast till night, I saw no more of him, except in 
the streets, on professional business ; there, indeed, him- 
self, his phaeton, and servant, were to be seen at most 
hours both of the day and night." 



148 

Among the interesting strangers, who, after the war, ex- 
perienced the hospitality, and enlivened the society of his 
house, was the celebrated Dr. Moyes, the blind physician 
and lecturer ; a man, who, though wanting one of the prime 
inlets of knowledge, and, according to Addison, the only 
one of the pleasures of the imagination, was yet, like his 
friend and countryman, Blacklock, remarkable for scien- 
tific learning, a cultivated imagination, and a refined and 
delicate taste. Landing unexpectedly at New- York, with- 
out friends or introduction, Dr. Bard's early and warm- 
hearted patronage introduced him at once to a circle of 
friends capable of appreciating and rewarding merit. His 
recollection of these favours was strong and lasting ; and, 
judging from his letters, long survived his return to his 
native country : a voyage which too often operates on his 
countrymen like the fabled waters of Lethe. 

Into his literary gratifications Dr. Bard carried all the 
ardour of his character ; he seized upon every new publi- 
cation of merit with the avidity of a famished appetite : 
and during its perusal was both deaf and blind to all 
causes of interruption. This intentness, or rather, ab- 
sorption of mind, was so great in his latter years, as some- 
times to be made the subject of good humoured experi- 
ment ; of which he seemed to be equally unaware, with 
every thing else that passed around him. Whether the 
work were one of taste, or science, made little difference : 
while his universal and wakeful curiosity made him alive 
to the acquisition of knowledge on every subject, to his 
lively fancy, and warm feelings, a well written poem, or 
novel, afforded the highest treat. 



149 

Of this, an instance has been mentioned to me by one 
of his auditors, in the reading of the " Vicar of Wake- 
field :" on looking into a copy, when it first came out, he 
reserved it for evening reading to his family. Commen- 
cing it at rather a late hour, his high relish of it would 
not permit him to lay it down until he had finished it ; and 
his hearers not choosing to retire, he closed the volume 
as the morning sun was rising. 

In reading Shakspeare, he not only delighted, but ex- 
celled : and though in this his enthusiasm might some- 
times " o'erstep the modesty of nature," yet it always 
pleased, by his vigorous conception, and forcible expres- 
sion of character. A lively moral sensibility enabled him 
to mark, with nice precision, the ever varying shades of 
feeling which render that dramatist peculiarly the poet 
of nature : and his graceful action was in just and har- 
monious accordance with the sentiment expressed. 

With a warmth of imagination, which, in his old age, 
perhaps encroached on the province of reflection, in his 
better days Dr. Bard united a coolness of judgment, and 
calmness of manner, which, as a disputant, left him few 
equals. Losing this self-possession, he was eloquent, 
when roused in conversation, rather than convincing. He 
was vigorous in his attack, but left himself open to many 
reprisals. On questions, however, of a moral and religious 
nature, where the arguments flow rather from the heart 
than the head, he ever continued both powerful and per- 
suasive : not, indeed, in the nice distinctions of schoolmen, 
but in the energetic enforcement of broad and leading 
truths. He had here that peculiar tone of eloquence, 
which arises from full-hearted sincerity, — a language that 



150 

can neither be misunderstood nor counterfeited : and 
which never can be otherwise than persuasive and com- 
manding. 

Of personal courage he had a great share ; but rather 
mental than constitutional. It did not arise from forget- 
fulness of danger, so much as from disregard to it. His 
mind was intent upon the duty to be performed, and 
weighed not the risk that attended it. Of this, a proof 
occurred during the revolutionary war, in which a fire 
burst out contiguous to a powder magazine in his neigh- 
bourhood. Upon the sudden alarm, his first thought and 
motion was to retreat with his family to a place of safety ; 
but, immediately checking himself with the recollection 
that the dreaded explosion might yet be averted, he com- 
mitted his wife and children to the care of a friend, forced 
his way through the retreating crowd to the scene of dan- 
ger, was among the first who ventured to the spot, and by 
whose exertions the fire was extinguished without acci- 
dent. 

As another instance may be mentioned his conduct in 
the popular tumult, commonly called the doctor's mob, 
excited, in the year 1788, against the physicians of the 
city, from suspicion of their robbing the grave-yards. In 
this riot, which for two days set at defiance both the civil 
and military force of the city, Dr. Bard exhibited a calm 
and dignified composure, which seemed to awe even the 
wild passions of the populace. Conscious of his inno- 
cence of the alleged charge, he resisted the most urgent 
solicitations of his friends to flee or conceal himself; but, 
as the infuriated mob approached his house, ordered the 
doors and windows to be thrown wide open, and paced 



151 

his hall in full view of them, as they drew near. His 
calmness, or his character, saved him : they approached 
with horrible imprecations 5 gazed a while in silence, and 
then passed on, with acclamations of his innocence. 

That this composure was the triumph of mind over 
body, may be presumed from the anxiety and sensibility 
he evinced, when the safety or sufferings of others were 
in question. This unfitted him, as has been already sta- 
ted, for the duties of a surgeon. The first operation he 
performed, he went through with a steady hand 5 but fain- 
ted when he had bound up the wound : and, in a second, 
he operated successfully, but, it may be presumed, tremu- 
lously, since the expectation of it had made him pass 
the night in pacing his chamber. 

As a physician, this acute sensibility, so far from an im- 
pediment, was, in no small measure, the ground both of his 
popularity and success. It sometimes depressed his feel- 
ings, but never dispirited his exertions. It gave the 
warmth of friendship to professional formalities, inspired 
the patient with confidence in his care ; and thus giving 
relief to the mind, paved the way for that of the body. 
To the friends of the sick, his manners, or rather, his 
character, was peculiarly comforting, — to the skill of a 
physician, he added the interest of a relative. They 
were satisfied that every thing was done his art could do ; 
that neither coldness, nor selfishness, nor the pursuits of 
pleasure, or ambition, withheld him from any personal 
exertion. His look, and language, and actions, all spoke 
the deep interest he took in the result; and showed a heart 
not then set on reputation or profit, but filled with sympa- 



152 

thy for human suffering, and alive in all its energies to de- 
vise means for its relief. The comparison Dr. Bard once 
made use of, in a case of violent disease, will illustrate 
this excitement. " I feel," said he, " as if I had a giant by 
the throat, I must fight for life." 

Nor is it easy to set limits to the powers of the healing 
art, when thus wielded by a sound mind, under the influ- 
ence of strong excitement. By it, the powers of the in- 
tellect, like those of the body, are doubled ; learning, in- 
genuity, and skill, combine their strength ; and by such 
hands will, at least, be done, what the medical art can do. 
Life and health are in other and higher hands ; but such 
hands will, at least, best manage those second causes on 
which they are, or seem to be dependent. 

Of the success of medical practice, it is not easy to 
speak; but there is no doubt that this powerful union 
of heart and head often produced wonderful recoveries : 
and the universal attachment of his patients certainly 
evinced no common degree of reliance on his professional 
skill. 

Of the principles on which he practised, it belongs to 
medical men to speak : thus much, however, was apparent, 
he trusted more to the cautious experience of an observing 
mind, than to theoretic principles. He drew a wide and 
just distinction between generalizing facts, and theorizing 
upon them. To make experience valuable it must be di- 
gested into comprehensive views: while to turn it into 
theory, to reason upon that theory abstractly, and to ap- 
ply it universally, he considered to be the bane of medi- 
cal science, and the prevailing error of modern practice. 



153 

%i An impatient desire," he observes, in one of his ad- 
dresses, " to combine facts, and to draw general conclu- 
sions, is one of the greatest impediments to the growth 
of a wise experience. It is the error of ingenious men, 
and, therefore, should be specially guarded against by the 
young; who, in the warmth of their imagination, and pur- 
suit of knowledge, are too ready to adopt such plausible 
theories as promise to shorten their labour, and advance 
their views ; to remove all their doubts and difficulties, 
and enable them to give a reason for every thing. Be 
cautious, therefore, how you admit new names, new theo- 
ries, and new remedies. New names are always decei- 
ving ; new theories are mostly false or useless ; and new 
remedies for a time are dangerous. This rage for novel- 
ty, pervades our profession, especially in this country. 
Hence our extended catalogue of new fevers, and hasty 
adoption of new remedies ; hence the unlimited, and un- 
warranted application of mercury without weight, brandy 
without measure, and the lancet without discrimination ; 
and hence, I am afraid, I may say, the sacrifice of many 
lives which might have been preserved, had they been 
left to water gruel, and good nursing." 

In doubtful cases, he was content to prescribe rather 
for the symptom than the disease : and trusting much to 
the sanative force of all organized life, that eve§yem ^cflixq 
of the older physicians, he was content to consider himself 
nature's interpreter, and ministering servant ; following, 
not guiding her ; and finding his chief employment in re- 
moving the obstructions which impeded her wise course 
to returning health. 

20 



154 

Such a principle is not, indeed, calculated to add im- 
portance to the art, or vanity to those who practise it; 
but, it is something in its favour, that age and scientific 
experience, generally arrive at it. 

Still, however, he was far from undervaluing the im- 
provements of modern medical science ; which, in one of 
his discourses, he states, as consisting in its " greater know- 
ledge of the animal economy, the pow r ers of a more effec- 
tual pharmacy, and the rules of a more enlightened prac- 
tice, w r hich prescribes with a view to definite and interme- 
diate results." 

It may be a question that some would wish answered, 
what course was adopted by a physician who studied to 
make his profession subservient to religion, in communi- 
cating or withholding his knowledge of a patient's danger ? 
On this delicate point he thus speaks in one of those anni- 
versary discourses, from which I quote the more freely 
as they are not likely to come before the public : 

" There is in the human mind a principle of acquies- 
cence in the dispensations of Divine Providence, which, 
when treated with prudence, seldom fails to reconcile the 
most timid to their situation. Such information I have 
generally found rather to calm perturbation of mind, than 
to increase danger, or hasten the event of the disease. 
Whenever, therefore, the duties of piety, or even the 
temporal interests of friends have demanded it, I have 
never hesitated making, and seldom, or never, repented 
euch communication." 



155 



AS a relaxation from business, Dr. Bard peculiarly pri- 
zed the enjoyment of his garden and conservatory, which 
were stored with the choicest native and exotic plants. 

The pleasure he took in them was almost a peculiar 
sense : nor was it to him, as he asserted, without its moral 
uses. He has often told the writer, that nothing calmed 
and soothed his mind like a walk among his plants and 
flowers ; and that he used it as a specific against the petty 
cares and anxieties of life. 

With extensive practice came the means of indepen- 
dence ; and, had he chosen it, of wealth. In his progress 
to the first he was thrown back by an unexpected loss. 

Having accumulated, by his own industry abroad, and 
the strict economy of his wife at home, the sum of fifteen 
hundred guineas ; he entrusted it to Dr. De Normandie ? s 
care, on his sailing for Europe, to be invested in the Bri- 
tish funds. While enjoying the novel pleasure of this little 
"peculium," and anticipating the comforts it would afford 
them, an English letter arrived, which he opened and read 
in the presence of his wife ; observing him to change coun- 
tenance, she anxiously inquired its contents.* ;; We are 
ruined," said he, "that is all." " If that be all," rejoined 
his calmer companion, " never mind the loss, we will soon 
make it up again." 

Such a spirit was contagious ; Dr. Bard took courage 
from the example of his wife, and returned to the task with 

* The money being deposited by Dr. De Normandie, until the invest- 
ment could be made, in the hands of Mark Cramer, a banker of repu- 
ted wealth ; he failed before it was withdrawn, to a great amount, so 
that it became, to Dr. Bard, a total loss. 



156 

cheerful resolution. The necessities of his father three 
times absorbed all his means, and involved him in debt : 
but the same resolute and prudent management as often 
freed him ; and eventually secured for their declining age, 
that happy medium of wealth, which the wise have ever 
preferred, as affording the greatest enjoyments, with the 
fewest cares ; and which so fully answered all their de- 
sires, that they retired to the quiet of the country, at a 
time when the extent of his practice, and the rising char- 
ges of the profession, would have doubled his fortune in 
the space of a very few years. 

Of Dr. Bard's time and services, most of the literary 
and benevolent institutions of the city had a share. To 
the hospital, he continued devotedly attached. Of the 
city dispensary, he was one of the founders and physi- 
cians ; of the Agricultural Society of the state, an original 
and active member. His exertions contributed to the 
foundation of the first public library ; and, in short, his 
heart and hand were with every scheme of benevolence 
and public improvement. 

In the year 1791, the Trustees of Columbia College, 
with the co-operation of the Medical Society, re-organi- 
zed the department of medicine which the war of the 
revolution had broken up ; and with peculiar suitableness, 
placed at its head, as Dean of the faculty, the founder and 
only survivor of the original school. With this station no 
professorship was connected ; the great object of the ap- 
pointment being to establish an official organ of com- 
munication between the faculty of medicine, and the 
Board of Trustees, to whom they were accountable. Dr. 
Bard was thus in the double capacity of member of the 



157 

one, and presiding officer of the other, — a wise provision, 
as excluding those facilities to intrigue, which arise from 
varied and imperfect communication. With such duties, 
those of a Professor would have been obviously inconsis- 
tent ; but anxious to contribute his personal exertions to 
the advancement of medical education, Dr. B. turned to 
this point his privilege as physician to the hospital, by 
giving to the students in the wards of that institution a 
course of clinical lectures. 

The union of skill and feeling which marked Dr. Bard 
at the bedside of a patient, rendered him peculiarly sui- 
ted for this department, which is valuable, as teaching 
not merely the learning, but the manners of the physi- 
cian. His kindness, his patience, his minute inquiries, 
and cheering words of consolation, addressed even to the 
poorest and meanest, had the value of moral, as well as 
medical instruction ; and served to lead the minds of his 
students beyond the forms, into the substance and spirit 
of their duty, to what may be termed the i; final cause" 
of their profession, relief to suffering humanity ; teaching 
them to lay the basis of their practice in a conscientious 
sense of the responsibility of life and health, which rested 
upon them. " Avoid," he used to say, " that affectation 
of quick discernment and hurried practice, which gene- 
rally marks the ignorant and ostentatious, hurrying from 
patient to patient, without once reflecting on the mischief 
and misery they may occasion ; and that life thus trifled 
away will one day be required at their hands." 

The period was now approaching in which Dr. Bard 
thought th'at, consistently with duty and prudence, he 
might retire to the bosom of his family, and the enjoy- 



158 

ment of those quiet pleasures to which he had always 
been attached. He thought, too, that some pause of re- 
flection should intervene between the business of life 
and its close : and he resolved to carry into effect a plan, 
which most wise men propose, but few execute, — that 
of retiring volantarily from the bustle of life, " conviva 
satur." 

To this plan, when made known, many objections were 
started and warmly urged. To the calculations of inte- 
rest, he replied that he had enough : to the predictions of 
after repentance, he was content to answer, that he was 
not afraid to try ; but against the solicitations of friend- 
ship, he found it difficult to maintain his resolution. 

The family physician in whose skill and sympathy such 
numbers had placed confidence, and received relief; in 
whose judgment they had found counsel, and in whose 
society pleasure ; to whose purity of principle and con- 
duct, to whose just and noble sentiments, they could so 
fearlessly entrust the influence that connexion gives over 
the younger members of their families : such a physician 
could not easily be given up, and many and strong ties 
were severed in taking up his final resolution. 

The moral and religious view Dr. Bard took of his pro- 
fession gave him a strong hold on the affections of his 
patients. In one of his sketches of the good physician, 
which, as he observes of that of Hippocrates, fci may be 
regarded as the picture of his own good heart, and sound 
understanding," he says, " the physician who confines his 
attention to the body, knows not the extent of his art : if 
he know not how to soothe the irritation of an enfeebled 
mind, to calm the fretfulness of impatience, to rouse the 



159 

courage of the timid, and even to quiet the compunctions 
of an over tender-conscience, he will very much confine 
the efficacy of his prescriptions ; and this he cannot do 
without he gain the confidence, esteem, and even the love, 
of his patients." 

His fathers removal, and his daughter's settlement at 
Hyde Park, at length decided him, and in the spring of 
the year i798, he removed to his well known seat, within 
a short distance of his father's residence. 

During a temporary visit he made the year previous, in 
which his only son accompanied him, a sudden and vio- 
lent illness reduced both his son and grandson to the 
brink of the grave : the following letter communicates to 
his sister his wife's arrival at this scene of anxiety, and 
conveys a striking picture of the repose inspired by love 
and confidence in that nearest of connexions. 

Hyde Park, Tuesday noon. 
My Dear Sally, 

I write to you in better spirits than on 
Saturday ; and beyond all comparison, better than I felt 
on Sunday, when I absolutely despaired of our dear Da- 
vid's recovery, and felt very serious apprehensions for 
William. Oppressed, fatigued, and almost worn out with 
anxiety and watching, my spirits sunk to the very lowest 
ebb by your letter, which gave us no hopes of seeing your 
sister by the boat. I conjectured, however, the cause of 
the disappointment, and entertained a faint hope that that 
would happen which afterward did, to my great joy ; and 
on Sunday evening, Richard returned from Poughkeepsie 
with the glad tidings that my dearest and best friend 



1 60 

would be with me in half an hour, I can hardly describe 
my sensations at seeing her ; for although I still despaired 
of our dear little fellow's recovery, and still felt great ap- 
prehensions for my dear son, yet her presence raised my 
spirits, and revived my courage ; and I felt a thousand 
times better able to support with her the worst that could 
happen, than even to take my chance without her. 

We now again look forward with hope : God Almighty 
confirm these happy presages, and teach us both to re- 
vere his dispensations, and be grateful for his mercies ! 
With sincere affection, &c. 

S. B. 

The following letter is without date, but appears writ- 
ten about this time, from Dr. Bard to his wife. 

New-York, Sunday mornings 1797. 
I yesterday was sent for to Long-Island, to visit Mrs. 
H. by my father who was attending upon her, where I 
heard, my dear Mary, more compliments than I deserve, 
paid me by my dear parent, during a severe fright he had 
just suffered on my account. While anxiously looking to- 
wards the river, expecting me across, the family were of 
a sudden alarmed by the cries of some people on the op- 
posite island, who stood wringing their hands, and pointing 
to a boat overset, and driving down with the tide, with one 
man on its bottom. Two boats set out to his assistance ; 
one with much difficulty took him in. The boat was con- 
cluded to be the ferry-boat, in which I was expected to 
pass. Mrs. H. thought she heard my name mentioned, and 
while they were attempting to take the person off the bot- 



161 

torn of the boat, they distinctly heard the people say, " he 
is gone !" You may conceive my poor father's distress ; 
the family described it to me in terms which greatly affect- 
ed me : he trembled, his countenance became pale and 
ghastly ; and his expressions of sorrow threw the whole 
family into tears. He declared I was all, and every thing 
to him ; that he had lost his all ; and thus continued to be- 
wail himself and me, until the return of the boat informed 
them that it was a pleasure boat from the city, and all 
saved. These affectionate tears, I confess, I am proud of. 
God bless you. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

To watch over the declining age of a father who so 
tenderly loved him, was a consolation not long spared to 
Dr. Bard. His father survived their united removal to 
the country but two years ; and then suddenly sunk, full 
of days, but free from the infirmities of age ; retaining, to 
the very last, that indescribable charm of manners and 
conversation which attached to him both young and old, 
and enlivened every society with a continued flow of 
cheerful and unaffected good humour. As song, anec- 
dote, or apt quotations, suggested themselves to his me- 
mory, they were poured forth by him without ostentation 
or exertion, and never failed to please by their ease and 
variety. 

These two years, though quickly passed, were long and 
gratefully remembered by his son. Upon his father's 
character he loved to expatiate ; while the firm health, 
the cheerful mind, and the many blessings which cheered 

91 



162 

the close of his life, were a subject to him of frequent 
thankfulness. 

The afternoon which preceded his fatal attack, was 
passed by the father at his son's house. He came, as 
usual, attended by his servant, (bearing before him two 
bottles of water from his own favourite spring, with 
which he contended, with an old man's partiality, none 
other could compare,) occupied, as he was wont, his high 
backed elbow-chair, and was more than usual the delight 
and admiration of the family circle. As he sat looking at 
the brilliancy of the setting sun, the glories of creation 
seemed to remind him of his own sources of happiness; 
and he suddenly exclaimed, " I think I am the happiest 
old man living." 

Of the two following letters, the first contains the pain- 
ful reverse of this picture, (at least to mortal eyes,) which 
the next morning exhibited : and the second, his charac- 
ter, after that painful scene was over, drawn by a skilful, 
though, perhaps, partial pen. 

Hyde Park. 
I write to you, my dear friends, from the sick chamber 
of our revered parent, who is in a situation which fills us 
with the greatest apprehensions for his life. On Friday 
morning (having parted from us the night before in re- 
markably good health and spirits,) his servant found that on 
awaking he spoke incoherently ; he, however, attempted to 
rise, but returned to bed before he left the chamber. On 
arriving, I found him with symptoms that indicated an ap- 
proaching palsy, his ideas incoherent, and his articulation 
very bad ; so that, at his age, I dare not encourage either 



163 

myself or you with any hopes of his recovery. Our con- 
solation is that he suffers no pain, lying, for the most part, 
in a sweet sleep, except when we arouse him to adminis- 
ter a little nourishment ; and farther, that no one circum- 
stance is wanting which can either alleviate uneasiness, or 
add, in the smallest degree, to his comfort ; and that his 
enjoyment of life, to the last moment, was such as to be 
the continued theme of his discourse, and of gratitude to 
Almighty God. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

Hyde Park. 
My Dear Son, 

Since the death of your dear and vene- 
rable grandfather, such a crowd of business has pressed 
upon me, as almost to prevent me from reflecting upon 
my loss ; certainly, to lessen my sense of the bereavement 
we have sustained. Indeed his death was attended by 
circumstances which afford the most effectual consolation ; 
and such a life as his, terminated by such an exit, must be 
our best wish for ourselves and our friends. And w T hen I 
reflect on his unblemished honour, unbounded philanthro- 
py, and unexampled cheerfulness, his unsubdued fortitude, 
which never sunk under the pressure of the severest mis- 
fortunes, his persevering industry, which never quitted 
him to the last, his steady friendships, his tender attach- 
ment to every branch of his family, and his exalted piety, 
which continually called forth a flow of gratitude for his 
good fortune, forgetting every circumstance of ill, I glory 



164 

in him as a parent, and recommend him to you, as a most 
worthy example for your imitation. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

But to return to circumstances connected with Dr. 
Bard's removal from the city. For some time previous 
to that event, an intimacy had subsisted between him and 
Dr. David Hosack ; and as soon as his removal was de- 
cided upon, he took him into partnership, partly with a 
view to his own relief, at a period of much exertion, but 
principally, that he might introduce to his large circle of 
patients, one to whose medical skill he was content to 
transfer their safety. 

Under this agreement he was enabled to pay frequent 
visits to his new establishment, where he was engaged in 
extensive building; and at length, in the spring of the year 
1798, to bid adieu to the city. This farewell, however, 
was neither a final, nor a long one. The fearful epide- 
mic, which had before desolated our city, again, in that 
year, made its appearance, and Dr. Bard resolved not to 
abandon his post when about to become one of anxiety 
and danger. An extract from a letter, upon this subject, 
addressed to his wife, evinces the " love, strong unto 
death," which united them. 

" I begin," says he, " to grow very impatient, my dear 
Mary, to hear from you. Drop me a line by the post, to 
assure me of your health ; of which I cannot bear the 
least uncertainty. As to myself, depend upon it, I will 
not deceive you ; and, in case of necessity, shall call for 



165 

my friend, my nurse, and comforter, without whose aid I 
can neither bear sorrow nor sickness ; and who, I know, 
would not forgive me, was I to rob her of her share of 
either, to which I must necessarily be exposed. 

For this call her anxious affection did not wait ; but as 
soon as the existence of the fever was ascertained, and 
his stay determined upon, she instantly joined him to 
share together a risk which then seemed almost despe- 
rate. His fearless exposure of himself, wherever benevo- 
lence called him, during that season of flight and alarm, 
was the means of rescuing many poor deserted wretches 
from death, and still oftener, of bestowing upon them 
some comfort and consolation when relief was hopeless. 
But the aid he so liberally gave others he soon needed 
himself, being seized with the prevailing fever, in which 
his long tried companion was to him all that his warm 
pen had described her ; " a friend, a nurse, and comfor- 
ter." His life was spared to her affection, and prayers ; 
and with her he returned to his longing family, who, du- 
ring his absence, and especially his sickness, had been 
a prey to the agonizing fears which their own apprehen- 
sions, or the hasty reports of others, excited. Among 
those whose society or counsel cheered and supported 
the family during this anxious separation, was the Rev. 
Thomas Hill, (then with his wife on a visit to Hyde Park,) 
a devoted follower of the visionary Swedenburg ; but one 
whose amiable and lovely character excited in all who 
knew him a more than common interest. 

The following letter has, perhaps, no other claim to in- 
sertion than the remembrance of the many virtues of the 
writer, and regret at his untimely fate. 



166 



Hyde Park, Sept. 1, 1798. 

Dear Sir, 

Give me leave to unite my acknowledgments 
with those of Mrs. Hill, for the great kindness you have 
done us, in recommending our visit to your friendly man- 
sion, where we have tasted exquisitely of the pleasures of 
benevolence and hospitality. We cannot say how much 
we feel obliged to you, for had we pursued a different 
route, it would have deprived us of a satisfaction we know 
not how to estimate. 

Allow us to express our share of concern at the disap- 
pointment of the complete happiness your family had a 
right to expect from your presence with them. It only 
furnishes a new evidence that our felicity is not to be 
complete in this stage of existence. We have expe- 
rienced too much kindness from Mrs. Bard to be able to 
part from her without much regret ; at the same time, we 
cannot but admire the generosity and fortitude of that 
determination which has called for her departure. 

Our fervent prayers will be offered up for the preser- 
vation of your health and happiness. May you be made 
a powerful instrument in the hands of infinite goodness, to 
assuage the calamity that afflicts your city, and to admi- 
nister health and consolation to the afflicted ; and may 
you hereafter reap plentifully the reward of benevolence 
and usefulness. 

We remain, &c. 

W. & E. HILL. 



167 

From this period, during the remainder of his life, Dr, 
Bard made the country his permanent residence ; diver- 
sified, however, by occasional visits to his friends in town. 
In many of these he supplied the absence of his friend 
and former partner from the city : returning with profes- 
sional fondness to the toils and excitement of an extensive 
practice. 

The attractions of retirement from a busy life, are pro- 
verbially illusive ; and, perhaps no nicer test can be found 
of mental vigour than the ability to bear the change 
from necessary to voluntary occupation. Few men could 
stand this test so well as Dr. Bard ; the untired curiosity 
of his mind found a new and boundless range in the objects 
and employments of the country. His poetic enjoyment 
of the beauties of nature, — his taste in planning, and fond- 
ness for effecting improvements, — his love of experiments, 
and skill in directing them, — his desire of knowledge of 
whatever kind, and eagerness in acquiring it, — his early and 
active habits, and, above all, the enthusiasm which stimu- 
lated and supported him in all his undertakings, set him 
above the power of indolence, that " master vice," as 
Burke terms it, of our nature, and secured to him, to the 
very last week of life, all his energy, activity, and cheer- 
fulness. 

How far it answered his expectations on the score of 
happiness, those who remember him need not be in- 
formed. His happy and animated looks would have pro- 
claimed it without the frequent and thankful expression 
which often broke from him, both in letters and con- 
versation. On this, as most other topics, Dr. Bard's sen- 
timents seemed to overflow ; they came without labour 



168 

or study, from a full heart and a feeling mind ; and form- 
ed, no doubt, one of the chief charms of his society. 

It would not seem easy to crowd into life more sources 
of enjoyment than filled the twenty three years of re- 
tirement which adorned and dignified, as well as termi- 
nated, his life. All the descendants of his father were by 
degrees drawn around him ; his own children successively 
settled in life, and gathered into the circle ; his grand- 
children grew up upon his knees, and as he looked 
around upon the health, and prosperity, and promise 
with which he was surrounded, he looked, and felt, and 
spoke, like a patriarch of a better age. But this is antici- 
pating the picture of a later period. At the time of his re- 
tirement, his son was just completing his legal studies in 
the city, and his younger daughter was his pupil and com- 
panion at home. 

To illustrate the care with which he watched over and 
guided the formation of his son's character, it may not be 
amiss to give some extracts from letters addressed to him 
about this time. 

Hyde Park, 1799. 
My Dear William, 

I am very happy you express your- 
self pleased with your new studies ; and at the ardour 
with which you enter upon them. You possess very pe- 
culiar advantages in the affectionate attention, as well as 
in the talents of Mr. P., of which, I doubt not, you will 
make the most, and return them by every mark of respect 
and regard to his interests. Amidst all your studies, how- 
ever, remember to give a proper portion of your time to 



169 

exercise and polite company ; the one is necessary to 
health, the other to cheerfulness. The manner in which 
you say your day is spent, is certainly good for profit, for 
pleasure, and instruction; and, 1 hope, not injurious to 
health : to prevent it being so, I would advise you to 
walk frequently, to stand upright when you study, as long 
sitting in a bent posture is always injurious to the diges- 
tive organs ; and now and then to ride an hour before 
dinner, which prevents accumulations of bile. Nothing 
grows upon a man so much as the habits of a sedentary 
life ; at the same time nothing is so pernicious. I beg, my 
dear boy, that for all our sakes, you will pay due attention 
to this important advice. I have been practising the les- 
sons received from F., in reading Shakspeare aloud; — at 
every new perusal I discover new beauties. Study him ; — 
to one destined to speak in public, there must be great 
advantage in a familiar acquaintance with his beautiful 
and expressive language. Adieu. Remember us affec- 
tionately to all friends, and continue to devote your days 
to business. Your evenings I leave at your own disposal, 
so long as prudence and virtue are your companions. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

Hyde Park, February 1, 1800. 
Your letter, my dear William, we have received, and 
with great pleasure have accompanied you on your jour- 
ney to Philadelphia, and in your visits and amusements 
there. One observation, however, gave us pain, lest you 
should have been wanting in respect to some of your New- 
York friends. You tell me, that although you had been 



170 

two days in Philadelphia, you had not delivered one third 
of your letters. You should remember, that to delay the 
delivery of a letter of introduction for several days until 
the person to whom it is addressed, has heard of you, and 
perhaps, seen you, is not only a very awkward circum- 
stance to you, but a great slight both to him and the writer. 
A great deal of this kind of business can be done in a single 
morning ; but enough of this. — I expect with some impa* 
tience your next letter, and beg you will be equally parti- 
cular, as to yourself, in that and all during your stay in 
Philadelphia; they afford us much more pleasure than if 
written on any other topic. 

Do not engage much of your time in the company of 
young men ; such companions seldom afford much instruct 
tion : and into gentlemen's society I wish you not to go on 
this occasion, but with a view to some improvement. 

By this time you must have become a settled man, and 
can distribute your day with some regularity. Nothing, 
not even balls and late hours, I expect to interrupt your 
practice of early rising. I know, from experience, it is not 
necessary they should ; and if once you permit them to 
do so, other causes will claim the same privilege, and 
soon rob you of this most valuable portion of your time^ 
It is certainly possible to unite pleasure and business; and 
this is the only condition upon which I will consent to 
your being a man of pleasure, even on this occasion. I 
expect, therefore, an account of your studies, as well as 
your amusements. — Once a week a long and particular 
letter ; get the largest paper, and write close. 

Yours, &c. 

S. B, 



171 



Hyde Park, Monday, Feb. 17, 1800. 

Your letter of the 8th, my dear William, was very wel- 
come to us ; it assisted to relieve a melancholy depres- 
sion which for some days has hung upon our spirits, owing 
to the sudden death of our old and faithful servant Ri- 
chard, His complaint, which from the first was attended 
with symptoms that alarmed me, (though I apprehended 
rather a tedious illness than a sudden death.) had not ap- 
parently much increased until within a very few days. On 
Wednesday afternoon he appeared to suffer more than or- 
dinary pain, and by nine o'clock at night, when, as usual, 
I went down stairs to pay him my last visit, I found his 
extremities cold, and his pulse so feeble, that although 
sitting up, 1 was convinced he would not outlive the night. 
Your mother and I staid with him until three o'clock in 
the morning, when he expired. The scene was a solemn 
one, and together with some expressions of tenderness 
and gratitude which fell from him almost in his last mo- 
ments, have left a deep impression. 

I see you have fallen into the fault I apprehended, and 
delayed to a very late day the delivery of some of your 
letters of introduction. If Mr. S. should happen to dis- 
cover it, it would not increase the warmth of his polite- 
ness : I hope you have, in no instance, made it worse by 
mentioning, as an apology, " the great number of letters 
you brought." 

If you had made an appointment with Dr. W. to attend 
his lecture, I think all the charming Miss C.'s in the world 
should not have detained you from it. Remember, through 



172 

life, that every man, and more particularly a literary man, 
thinks what he is engaged in of great importance, and al- 
though it may happen you do not feel much interested in it, 
it is both prudent and polite to appear to be so. Besides, 
it is a good rule never to break an appointment : that is 
a sufficient excuse to leave any company. We are well 
pleased, especially your mother, to hear you are so happy 
in Mrs. Coxe's family : her style of life is very congenial to 
our own, and unites to pleasure that temperance which is 
necessary to give it its highest relish. The more you are 
pleased with such pleasures and such society, the better 
we shall be pleased with you. In your next, give some 
account of your studies, as well as your amusements. A 
young man should never be without some good author on 
his table to take up when he is alone, and he should con- 
trive to be alone some hours every day, on purpose to 
take it up. Adieu. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

Hyde Park, Tuesday, Feb. 25. 
Your letter of the 15th, my dear boy, found us in better 
spirits than the last ; our tranquillity is in a great measure 
restored, and we shall, I hope, enjoy the delightful season 
which is approaching, with all the pleasure it usually 
brings to those who have health, and a taste for the beau- 
ties of nature. I have cut out for myself a great deal of 
pleasant work, and am in excellent health and disposition 
to undertake it. We hear, with pleasure, of the agreeable 
manner in which you spend your time. Study, relieved 



173 

by exercise, and enlivened by improving society, is the 
proper occupation for a young man who wishes to qualify 
himself to appear well on the stage of life. 

You have acted perfectly right in accepting Dr. R.'s 
invitation, and taking no notice of his omission of puncti- 
lio : nothing could justify you in doing so, but the con- 
viction of its being intended; then it must always be re- 
turned in kind : but when polite attention, in other res- 
pects, manifests a real friendliness, it should always out- 
weigh such trifling omissions : to notice them would mani- 
fest a little or a captious mind ; and, besides, woold be 
most imprudent in a young man, whose business is to 
make friends, not enemies. 

Employ more of your time in private visits ; you will 
learn more of character in one family visit, than at a do- 
zen entertainments, where you see all under the mask of 
false merriment. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

Hyde Park, Feb. 9, 1801. 
My Dear William, 

I very much commend your resolution 
to take the advice of your uncle in all matters of poli- 
tics, or indeed, any other point of conduct in which you 
entertain the least doubt of your own judgment, which, 
however, I do not doubt, will be, in general, no bad guide, 
provided you have resolution enough to follow^ steadily 
the dictates of your own unbiassed opinion. Be open, my 
dear boy, to conviction ; but never suffer yourself to be 



174 

led in opposition to your own judgment, unless in the 
case of friends whose age and experience qualify, and 
whose relationship authorizes them, to give you advice, I 
have the fullest confidence in your prudence, and should 
be sorry if you did not feel some emotion of patriotism on 
the present occasion. But do not suffer your zeal to carry 
you into precipitate engagements ; and remember, that on 
both sides of the question, especially among the warmest 
and most noisy partisans, faction has a greater share in 
their conduct than patriotism. Be therefore distinguish- 
ed rather for your moderation than your zeal, and as you 
cannot as yet lead, scorn to be led. 

It is the interest of all parties to pursue the public 
good ; a change of men will not, therefore, always change 
measures for the worse ; so that the best thing that can 
happen, in a government like ours, where parties have 
arrived nearly at a balance, is a change of men, by which 
the mass of the people may be convinced, that the virtue 
and merits of the one party do not so far outweigh those 
of the other as to be worth all this sacrifice of their quiet 
to the interests of either. Such sentiments, I know, will 
never recommend you to their good opinion, or establish 
you in office ; but I hold independence to be better than 
both. 

But do I recommend such sentiments to you ? I confess 
I do in so far as to inspire you with moderation in your 
political attachments, and candour in opposition. Never 
become the hanger on of a party, nor suffer yourself to 
be carried beyond the bounds of sober judgment, when 
measures are the subject of dispute ; nor of candour and 



175 

moderation, when men are, — but on all occasions endea- 
vour to think for yourself, and support a perfect indepen- 
dence, both in your conduct and opinions. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

Hyde Park, May 20, 1798* 
My Dear Boy, 

The late unhappy occurrence between 
two of my friends, has filled me with grief and apprehen- 
sion. In the fate of Mr. J., I lament the untimely death 
of an inoffensive and worthy man ; and I sincerely sympa- 
thize with the surviver ; whose feelings, on this occasion, 
are probably such as to make him envy the fate of his an- 
tagonist. How tyrannical is that custom which can impose 
such cruel necessities on us ; and how unbecoming a wise 
and brave man to yield to its dictates ! Whatever may be 
our feelings on such occasions, the sacrifice of our cool and 
unprejudiced judgment can never be justified, and, at best, 
admits but of the weak excuse, that our passions were too 
strong for our reason and sense of duty. I know the an- 
swer to these arguments, and would acknowledge its force, 
were it put in our choice, or within the limits of our duty, 
to live, or not, as we might choose. But, when we re- 
flect, on the contrary, that it is absolutely our duty to live, 
under any circumstances and trials to which it shall please 
God to subject us, and that there can be no valid excuse 
whatever, but self-defence, for depriving another of his 
life ; this, and every other argument in defence of duel- 
ling, must fall to the ground. Nor will a wise and brave 



176 

man, who is conscious that his decision springs from a 
sense of duty, and the clear and unprejudiced dictate of 
reason, find the unmerited censure of the thoughtless or 
prejudiced part of mankind so insupportable a burthen; 
but, in the approbation of his own conscience, and of the 
wise and virtuous, ever find a support that will abundantly 
console him for all they may say, and in his own courage 
a resource for all they may attempt against him. 

But these general reflections, my dear son, are not the 
only lesson I am desirous it should teach you. Look into 
the origin and conduct of it, and learn how to avoid the 
danger. ******** 

After all, party politics were at the bottom of this fatal 
business. Let it, therefore, serve as a convincing and per- 
petual lesson to you on that subject, that an intemperate 
zeal is a very foolish and dangerous guide. I confess I do 
not believe there is so much virtue on either side of the 
question, as justly to call forth any violent warmth from an 
independent and unambitious man ; and I wish to see you 
assume this character. Love your country as much as you 
please ; fight for her ; die for her, if necessary : but never 
suffer yourself to be led by the intrigues of either party. 
Qualify yourself to serve your country in the cabinet, to 
which your profession naturally leads ; but never strive to 
force yourself into her councils ; and, above all things, 
avoid the road of party, and the little arts of greedy poli- 
ticians. In your conduct, therefore, during the present 
crisis, aim at no distinction of any kind, wear no badge, 
make no speeches in public, and in private, although you 
do not affect to conceal your sentiments, always deliver 



177 

them with moderation, candour, and temper. May God 
direct you in all things. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B> 

Shortly after this period, Dr. Bard's feelings, as a pa- 
rent, were deeply excited by a severe and long continued 
illness which brought to the brink of the grave this only 
son. The letter which follows appears to have been writ- 
ten to him during his convalescence. 

Hyde Park, March 1, 1799* 
My Dear William, 

Your letter of last Sunday gave us 
all great pleasure, as it confirmed the good hopes with 
which I left you of the complete re-establishment of your 
health. Yours may almost be called a resuscitation, and 
fills us all with joy and gratitude in proportion to our pre- 
ceding despondency. I confess to you, my dear boy, that 
the near prospect of your death turned my thoughts very 
forcibly to a self examination how far I had fulfilled my 
duty in respect of your education ; and I felt some appre- 
hension that in the conduct of it I had not paid that con- 
stant attention to the great object of religion that its im- 
portance, my duty, and your happiness required. It has 
ever been my wish to build my own and my children's 
religious opinions on the great and fundamental truths of 
God's creation and government of the world. This leads 
to Revelation, in which, as there is nothing impossible or 
unreasonable, so was it very necessary, that God should 



178 

instruct us in the knowledge of his laws ; the practice of 
which alone can secure our happiness. And as the ex- 
ternal evidences of God's power, and wisdom, and good- 
ness, manifested in the works of creation, afford the most 
satisfactory and undeniable proofs of his existence and na- 
tural government of the world ; so, on the other hand, do 
the internal evidences of the Christian Revelation, mani- 
fested in the wisdom, purity, and sublimity of its doctrines, 
prove, most satisfactorily, its divine origin, and his moral 
government. If you will but attentively read the life of 
our Saviour, as delivered in the Gospels, and form your 
own opinion of his character and mission from his conduct, 
and what he says of himself, you will, I hope, find no dif- 
ficulty in believing, that he spake not solely from his own 
authority, but from that of him who sent him, the Great 
God and Father of us all. I advise you to enter upon 
this inquiry, and to devote, at least, a part of every Sun- 
day to it : and I sincerely pray that God may enlighten 
your mind, and give you such conviction as will establish 
your principles, regulate your conduct, and secure your 
happiness. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

In the year 1801, the father's most anxious wishes for 
his son's prosperity were fulfilled, by his marriage with 
the daughter of an old friend, and early patron, the late 
N. Cruger, Esq. of this city. The following is an extract 
from his letter to his son on that occasion. 



179 



Hyde Park. 

I rejoice, my dear son, in your present happiness 5 and I 
rejoice too, to find you are not so much intoxicated with 
it, as to suffer yourself to dream of its uninterrupted con- 
tinuance ; because that conviction will induce you early 
and always to apply to the only remedy against those evils 
which you justly call unavoidable, since virtue itself is 
not secure against them, — I mean religion. This is our 
strong hold, our castle, and rock of defence, our refuge in 
times of adversity, our comforter under misfortune, our 
cheerful companion, and friendly monitor in the hours of 
gladness and prosperity. — " Whoso walketh uprightly, 
walketh surely;" and he is most likely to walk uprightly, 
who considers himself constantly under the eye and go- 
vernment of God and his providence. This has ever been 
the joy and consolation of the good and wise ; and is the 
only philosophy which can satisfy a reasonable mind, and 
reconcile us to what we daily see, and hear, and feel. But 
I am satisfied it is not necessary to press these reflections 
upon you 5 some expressions in your letter have led me 
into them, and I own I delight to dwell on them. 

The details of your letter have given us great pleasure ; 
may your happiness meet with few, very few, interrup- 
tions ; against these, next to virtue and religion, modera- 
tion will be your great security. 

As to us, we are all here set down to our regular and 
quiet system for the winter. My dear little pupil im- 
proves fast, at least, as fast as can be expected from one 
of her volatile temper. She is up with me before sunrise ; 
and one of the pleasantest hours of the day is the one I 



180 

spend with her. I find very great delight and satisfaction 
in her docility and industry ; and if we go on as we have 
begun, I hope we shall delight some others as well as our- 
selvesr 

Your affectionate father, 

S. Br 

Hyde Park* 

My Dear William, 

The slow encouragement young law- 
yers meet with seems to have occupied our thoughts at 
the same time. I greatly approve of your spirit and de- 
termination, by study and diligent application, to render 
yourself, in some measure, necessary to the public, and 
depending not upon their favour, but attachment to their 
own interest. Yet, I cannot help thinking, you will faci- 
litate your success by a more popular address, and the 
appearance, at least, of a social and friendly intercourse 
with all. To command success in any enterprise, we 
must make some sacrifices ; and this appears to me so 
easy, as hardly to merit the name. There is nothing I 
more ardently desire than to see you placed in an inde- 
pendent station, exercising your industry and talents both 
to your honour and advantage. Go on, therefore, in your 
laudable determination, only take to your aid such auxi- 
liaries as will accelerate your course, at the same time 
that they contribute to your health and amusement. 

I observe, by your letter, that some of your friends were 
to dine with you on Sunday ; 1 will take occasion, from this 
circumstance, to caution you against its becoming a habit ; 
for, although I do not think it necessary to hear " seven 



181 

3ermons on that day," yet, it should certainly be a day of 
rest both to yourself and servants 5 and should be spent 
in devotion, rational retirement from business and fashion, 
tranquillity, and by the lower ranks, cheerful relaxation 
from labour. Avoid it, therefore, for the sake of your 
servants, if not your own. You know there is nothing I 
have more at heart, than that you should deliberately form 
opinions for yourself upon every important duty or con- 
cern of life ; and that, when you have settled your own 
opinions, you should steadily adhere to them, nor suffer 
yourself to be swayed by the breath of fashion, or the 
prejudice or custom of others : think for yourself. Adieu, 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

With what mutual pleasure the studies with his young 
pupil at home were pursued, it may be permitted to use 
her pen to describe. 

"My father's time, after his settlement in the country, 
was passed with much regularity : the principal part of 
my instruction he took upon himself. Arithmetic, geo- 
graphy, &c. occupied the early part of the morning ; draw- 
ing and botany succeeded; and our studies generally en- 
ded with a walk in the woods, or a scramble among the 
rocks, in which I delighted to follow him. His pockets, 
on such excursions, were generally filled with such new ? 
plants as we could collect; affording a botanical lesson 
for the day, and specimens for future illustration. I had 
a little of his own fondness for drawing and plants, and 
look back with delight on the pleasure and employment 
I thus afforded him. An illustration of the system of Lin» 



182 

aaeus, and subsequently, of Miss Rowden's botany, was 
the manner in which he made me unite these studies ; or- 
namenting every page or two with a group or basket of 
flowers, with some appropriate sentence, either from 
Scripture, or our best poets. Thus uniting in my mind, 
as he ever endeavoured to do, the cultivation of taste 
with religious and moral truth ; a favourite sentiment of 
his, which he often expressed in the words of Langhorne. 

* Whatever charms the ear or eye, 

All beauty and all harmony, 

If sweet sensations these produce, 

I know they have their moral use : 

I know that nature's charms can move 

The springs that strike to virtue's love.' " 

Soon after Dr. Bard became a resident in the country, 
his zeal in agricultural pursuits led him to unite in the 
formation of a county society of that nature, over which 
he was called to preside ; a tribute due not only to his 
scientific knowledge, but to the ardour with which he ap- 
plied it to useful purposes. To this society, on its suc- 
ceeding anniversaries, he addressed several discourses, 
which evince a union of much practical skill in farming, 
with enlightened theory : and anticipated, in some degree, 
the course of Sir Humphrey Davy, in applying the powers 
of chemistry to elucidate the principles, and improve the 
practice, of husbandry. A comparison of the virtues of 
different soils and manures, together with the means of 
forming them ; the introduction of improved implements, 
and foreign grasses, now became, to Dr. Bard, a never fai- 
ling source of occupation and interest, seldom of profit. 



183 

generally of expense ; since, like most other experimenta- 
lists, his unsuccessful trials formed by far the greater pro- 
portion. To the public, however, they had their value ; 
his failures taught caution, as well as his success wisdom ; 
and, on the whole, diffused much new knowledge among 
practical farmers, exciting a spirit of rational inquiry 
into the means of improving the most neglected, though 
the most useful of arts. Among the special improvements 
he introduced, or encouraged, were the more extended 
use of clover grass as a crop, and gypsum as a manure ; 
the general adoption of which, in a few years, almost dou- 
bled the wealth of the county in which he resided. On 
these subjects he corresponded with his old friend, Judge 
Peters, of Pennsylvania, who was similarly engaged in 
turning professional retirement into the means of agricul- 
tural usefulness. At a later period, when his friends, Chan- 
cellor Livingston, and Col. Humphreys, introduced into 
the country the merino breed of sheep, Dr. Bard entered, 
with more zeal, perhaps, than prudence, into that specu- 
lation. As a national question of securing to our country 
the fine fleeces of France and Spain, he saw no limit to 
its value ; and with the syllogistic errors of an enthusiastic 
mind, transferred to the minor all the values of the major 
proposition. As a source of individual profit, he was de- 
ceived, in common with men of sober and calculating 
minds, as none could foresee that total downfal of the 
Spanish monarchy, to which alone it was owing, that the 
sheep and shepherds of that distracted country were scat- 
tered like things of no value, to almost every corner of 
the civilized globe. In principle, however, Dr. Bard was 
right: though individuals lost the country was a gainer; and 



184 

the subsequent improvement of our woollen manufactures 
may be traced, in no small degree, to this speculation ; 
the very absurdities of which was the magic charm which 
transported the Spanish flocks by thousands to our shores. 

One danger attending their introduction, Dr. Bard early 
perceived, and laboured to obviate. — Finding them liable 
to many new and fatal diseases, the nature and cure of 
these became a matter of the first importance, both to save 
the individuals, and to prevent infection. With this view, 
he published a work entitled " The Shepherd's Guide," 
which, though small, was the result of much investigation, 
and repeated and careful experiment. 

To the cultivation of the locust tree, our most valua- 
ble timber, he had turned his attention as early as the re- 
volutionary war. A letter of that date says, " we have 
been planting a fortune for our children, — a great quan- 
tity of locust seed ; our farm is to be one great forest 
of locust trees." Of these early labours, he now began 
to reap the fruit, in the beauty, if not profit, of his plan- 
tations ; and his children value them, not so much in the 
light of his prediction, as that they form grateful monu- 
ments of his taste and labour. 

With all the scrupulousness of a moralist, Dr. Bard 
considered his medical skill as a talent committed by Pro- 
vidence to his charge, and one which he was bound to use 
diligently and conscientiously. These feelings prevented 
complete retirement from professional duties, and made him 
alive to every call of sickness in his neighbourhood ; espe- 
cially where poverty precluded remuneration, or where 
the case demanded experience beyond that of the resident 
physician. On these occasions, he would break off from 



185 

any occupation, however engaging, and run almost any 
personal risk, rather than fail in his daily visit; and it was 
a moral lesson, which sometimes put to shame younger 
men, to witness such sensibility to duty, and such vigour 
in its performance, in one, whose age and services might 
so well have pleaded an apology for indulgence. At 
such calls, he would often shake off indisposition that 
was confining him to his chamber, and throwing his cloak 
around him, mount his horse, or chair, be for an hour the 
active and vigorous physician, and then return to the 
quiet and repose which his health required. Such exer- 
tions may, perhaps, be blamed as imprudent ; but they will 
ever be loved as amiable, and respected as honourable : 
and even against the charge of imprudence, may be set 
the fact of the good health and long life enjoyed by one, 
who, with a feeble constitution, never allowed the appre- 
hension of sickness to stop him in the path of duty. His 
"patient's health," he was wont to say, he " considered as 
committed to his keeping, — his own as in the hands of 
Providence.' 5 

In compliment to his age and character, he was imme- 
diately, on his settlement in the county of Dutchess, elec- 
ted President of its Medical Society, in which station he 
laboured to advance the interests and reputation of the 
profession, by increased strictness in examinations for 
license, and by various schemes for its improvement : 
among others, a plan which he long, but unsuccessfully 
urged upon the legislature, that of endowing, for a term of 
years, in the medical school of New- York, two free scho- 
larships for each of the counties of the state ; which he 
calculated, and it appears with reason, would soon ex- 

24 



186 

elude from business the ignorant practitioners with which 
the country then abounded, to the disgrace of the profes- 
sion, and the danger of their employers. 

As an author, Dr. Bard's name is scarcely known be- 
yond the circle of his profession ; even in that, his works 
are not voluminous, and so unostentatious in style and 
manner, as not to have attracted the notice they deserve. 
They mark, notwithstanding, the true character of a di- 
dactic writer, a mind well versed in the subject treated 
of, and more thoughtful of the reader's improvement than 
the writer's reputation. They have thus laid for him the 
basis of a medical fame, durable if not extended. 

It is, perhaps, to be regretted, that he did not turn his 
attention more to public authorship. The clearness of 
his mental perceptions, the inductive character of his 
reasoning, and the manly vigour of his style, would have 
added much to his own celebrity, and somewhat, no 
doubt, to the advancement of science ; while the warm 
tone of moral and religious earnestness which pervades 
all his writings, would have given them additional value, 
and served to wipe out from the character of his profes- 
sion that base stain of irreligion, which has too long, and 
too unjustly, rested upon it. Upon this subject, he thus 
expresses himself in one of his academical charges : " Ga- 
len is said to have been converted from atheism by the 
contemplation of a human skeleton ; how then is it possi- 
sible that a modern physician can be an infidel ! — one who 
is acquainted with the mechanism of the eye and the 
ear ; with the circulation of the blood, the processes of 
nourishment, waste, and repair, and all the countless won- 
ders of the animal economy ! He must be blind, indeed. 



187 

if he do not see in these the unquestionable marks of in- 
finite wisdom, power, and goodness." 

Besides the works already mentioned, Dr. Bard's pub- 
lications consist of a treatise, written in the year 1771. 
upon the t; angina suffocativa/' a disease which then ap- 
peared in the city under a new form, or with new viru- 
lence : another upon the use of cold in hemorrhage : 
many occasional addresses to public bodies; anniversary 
discourses to medical students : and the largest of his works 
a treatise upon obstetrics, which was prepared by him 
after his retirement. This is a work of superior value, if 
not merit, from the salutary caution it teaches in the use 
of those instruments, which, in rash and unskilful hands, 
have rendered this part of the art rather a curse than a 
blessing. It passed through several editions during the 
life time of its author and the preparation of a new and 
enlarged one, gave interest to the last to his professional 
studies. 

Of his literary habits, more can be said : they were a 
model for literary men. His early hours, and active em- 
ployment of them ; his great temperance, and habitual ex- 
ercise, are habits which would go far. if adopted, in pre- 
serving the race of authors from those mental diseases 
which have become their proverbial inheritance ; and 
which arise much more from indolence of body, or im- 
prudent exertion of mind, than from that superior deli- 
cacy of temperament, to which they are willing to impute 
them. 

Dr. Bard, who possessed that nervous temperament in 
a great degree, was entirely free from these complaints of 
an ill regulated imagination. Cheerful activity marked 



188 

all his words and actions, and that so strongly, that it dif- 
fused itself, by an irresistible sympathy, over all around 
him ; rousing indolence, and banishing melancholy. 

Another marked trait of his intellectual character has 
already been mentioned, — his unsated desire of know- 
ledge. He never rested in his acquisitions ; and even in 
his latest years, would undertake some new study with all 
the ardour of youth. "It was one of his maxims," says 
one whose character was modelled by them, " that at no 
period of a man's life should he leave off employing his 
mind in the acquisition of useful knowledge ; he ought al- 
ways to have some study before him ; and that not only 
as affording him a rational employment in old age, but 
as a means of keeping the faculties of his mind alive 
and vigorous. "We fail them," he used to say, " a great 
deal more than they fail us." To this point, he often 
quoted from his favourite treatise, the maxims of the 
elder Cato : " Resistendum senectuti est, pugnandum, tan- 
quam contra morbum sic contra senectutem. — Ut senec- 
tus non languida sit, sit operosa, et semper agens aliquid 
et moliens." 

Of this, as a casual instance, may be mentioned the fol- 
lowing circumstance. In the course of the author's pro- 
fessional studies at Hyde Park, a Latin copy of Moshiem 
was accidentally left by him in the parlour : at an early 
hour the next morning, he found Dr. Bard deeply engaged 
in its perusal, which he continued from day to day, with a 
zeal and assiduity which always distanced the rightful stu- 
dent. These habits saved him from the most melancholy 
accompaniments of age, and prevented that gloom which 
too often darkens the close of life : but on this point, his 



189 

own language will afford the best proof; and in the care- 
less, unpremeditated expressions of the following domes- 
tic letters, the reader will see the picture of a cheerful, 
virtuous, and happy old age. 

Hyde Park, Friday morning, Feb. 1 802. 
My Dear Son, 

We have had the coldest night I have ex- 
perienced since I lived on the banks of the Hudson ; as a 
proof, his majestic stream was one sheet of solid ice when 
I arose this morning ; although, last night, not a particle 
was to be seen. But in spite of cold, we continue to en- 
joy ourselves with uniform comfort, and uninterrupted, 
because temperate, pleasure. Our studies, business, and 
amusements, fill every moment of our time, except what 
is devoted to food and sleep ; and in those we waste none. 
Whatever be the cold without, we banish it from within ; 
and our blazing hearth, around which each of us finds 
a comfortable seat, adds cheerfulness to comfort. Thus 
passes the even tenor of our days; whilst you, perhaps, 
under the name of pleasure, are shivering at a feast, or 
rubbing your fingers, and kicking your heels in the side- 
box of the theatre. Yesterday we had a pleasant day 
with Mr. & Mrs. B. Mr. J. and his wife, &c. I antici- 
pate many such, and would not exchange them for your 
balls, nor even Mrs. C.'s. Healthy and at ease, we feel 
no want of amusement or variety. Work, conversation, 
and books, fill up our day, — Cowper occupies our eve- 
nings most pleasantly ; and in his letters to his friends con- 
tinually reminds us of our own feelings; except that, 
thank God, we know none of his depression ; a truth. 



190 

which, although I believe you need not be informed of, 
yet it will bear repetition, and I feel a pleasure in re- 
peating it. He expresses, however, all our love for our 
friends, and all our impatience to meet again ; only much 
better than we can say it. — But, although we cannot 
tell it so well, we intend to be equally happy when we 
meet ; and are so now in preparing for it. If you have 
half the desire to come to us that we have that you 
should, you will seriously set about it. Be therefore, stir- 
ring and ready ; from this time neither give nor receive 
invitations ; but employ your evening in planning busi- 
ness, and your morning in executing it. Adieu. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

(FIIOM MRS. BARTON TO HER NIECE.) 

Hyde Park, January 6, 1 803. 

Dear Sally, 

Your most entertaining journal was deli- 
vered to us on Sunday morning by William himself. Just 
as we were sitting down to breakfast, and in the mo- 
ment of your brother's exclamation, " what shall I do for 
William!" the door opened, and in he rushed upon us. 
A quick succession of questions and answers ensued ; af- 
ter which we sat down to one of the most agreeable re- 
pasts we had made for a long time. — Happy parents, to 
have such a son, — and happy son to have such parents. — 
Pity that the world does not afford more instances of what 
I think must constitute the greatest felicity this life is ca- 
pable of receiving. Instead of a messenger ? the two gentle- 



191 

men went to Bellefield, and brought back Mrs. J. and son 
with them to dinner. Mr. J. followed in the afternoon, 
and we concluded the Sunday evening as usual. Your 
brother is writing and compiling a set of discourses pe- 
culiarly adapted to his hearers ; which may in time, per- 
haps, become of more general use. You cannot think 
what a satisfactory occupation it has been for him. In- 
deed, he does pretty well in all ; which you may believe, 
when I tell you, from his assertions, that he has not a mo- 
ment of time which hangs heavy upon him. I do believe 
there never were four old people under one roof happier 
than we are. 

Our business goes on every evening, but I am sorry to 
say, very little to your or my interest ; for unfortunately, 
aunt M. and I do not understand Hoyle; so he is only 
quoted when he is against us. My say goes for nothing 
against man and wife ; and were it not for Tredrille, now 
and then after your brother is gone to bed, and cribbage 
with him when Susan and Mr. J. spend the evening with us, 
I should be actually ruined. But this has not only enabled 
me to make my payments good, but something to spare ; 
so that if we do not make our fortunes, I hope there will 
be no danger of our becoming bankrupts, which is a great 
comfort, in these perilous times. Humility is so rare 
now-a-days, and so great a virtue, that I cannot but ad- 
mire it in whatever shape it may appear ; but I must ac- 
knowledge I was a little surprised that you should have 
a doubt of our thinking of you at all times, more espe- 
cially at this festive season, when your absence has been 
felt by us all. Your journals are inestimable to us. I 
keep them safe locked up where no eye can see them but 



192 

as I choose. Thank Mrs. P. for her compliments on my 
letter writing. I wish I could do the same on her yielding 
temper ; but so far from it, I cannot help branding her 
with being as tyrannical as the Great Mogul ; or she would 
have consented to our having "Henry to Frances," or 
" Madame Sevigne," or some other such instructive book, 
that might teach her and other folk how to conduct them- 
selves, instead of filling our brains with novels and ro- 
mances, like so many young girls of fifteen. — Dinner waits. 

S. BARTON. 

For all aunt has said, do try and get us some good no- 
vels ; and go on with your journal, which keep for some 
private hand, for I do not know why I begin to lose my 
usual relish for my game at cards. 

S. BARD. 

Do not be alarmed at Mr. Bard's losing his relish for 
his cards ; it is only because he begins to have a run of ill 
luck. 

S. BARTON. 

Hyde Park, Dec. 22. 1805. 
Dear William, 

We are now settled in our plans of study 
for the winter; I am much pleased with those 1 have 
adopted for the improvement of your sister. Between 
this delightful employment, the business of my farm, and 
the society of my family, my time is very pleasantly and 
fully filled up : nor do I see in any of us the least symp- 
tom of ennui. I am deep in Asiatic researches, and much 



193 

interested in the study of that ancient and extraordinary 
people. You need put yourself to no expense to procure 
the rest of Sir W. Jones's works : what I have will afford 
me employment for all the leisure I can command ; as my 
eyes will not let me read much at night. We all, thank 
God, enjoy perfect health ; and, by the help of large fires, 
have passed through the severe weather with comfort. As 
to myself, I never was better, and do my best to preserve 
the blessing. I spend two or three hours every day in the 
open air, — the rest of my time is divided between rea- 
ding and writing ; so that I hope I shall not rust for want 
of use. 

You will receive this in the midst of the season of fes- 
tivity and good wishes, when we all pray for blessings on 
those we love. But how shall I express all we wish and 
feel for you ? Kiss your dear wife, and child, and sister ; 
and then, by the arithmetic of love, estimate the measure 
of health, and peace, and happiness, we wish and pray 
that you may enjoy, and think you hear us say "God 
grant it all." 

Yours, &c. 

S. BARD. 

(TO MISS B.) 

Hyde Park, Friday night. 
Your charming letters, my dear sister, do indeed give 
us a great deal of pleasure, and enliven our retreat almost 
as much as this bright sun does our winter days. They 
have became so necessary to us, that we grow impatient 
for the want of them ; and when they do arrive, we almost 
quarrel who shall have the first sheet to begin with* You 

25 



194 

must not, therefore, discontinue them now, or we shall 
pine at the disappointment. *• 

So much for business. — And now if I had any thing to 
say, I would attempt some return for all your pleasing 
particulars : but what shall I write ? Our manner of life 
here, though perfectly uniform, is, what you citizens will 
deem impossible, perfectly agreeable. Peace and quiet 
are our pursuit, and we have them in perfection. Most of 
us are old enough to be of Dr. Franklin's opinion, that 
ease is pleasure ; whilst with you young people, nothing 
but pleasure can give you ease. My horse is saddled 
regularly after breakfast, when I spend two hours abroad, 
this winter very often in the deepest recesses of my fo- 
rest, where the foot of man has, at least, seldom trod ; 
and here I find my contemplations particularly agreeable 
and soothing. My health, I thank God, has much im- 
proved, — my eyes have been somewhat injured by the 
Snows and bright sun ; but I think begin to grow stronger. 
We read every evening until eight, and have found a 
plentiful source of amusement in H.'s collection. Adieu. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

Hyde Park, November, 1807. 

Wednesday. — I got a tumble tp-day ; but as both aunt 
and wife say I deserved it, I will say no more about it, 
only that to the confusion in my head I attribute having 
this evening lost one point at backgammon and three at 
whist. 

Thursday. — I have not stirred out of the house, owing 
to a slight indisposition which succeeded my fall ; but 



195 

which, 1 thank God, has now entirely disappeared. * * 

* * * * % * 

To be sure, the life we now lead differs from that we lately 
led ; and in my opinion, it is greatly to be preferred, even 
when novelty is thrown into one scale and uniformity in 
the other. — But perhaps I cannot give you a better proof 
that I am growing an old man; for, to the old, quiet 
and ease are pleasure. Friday. — Yesterday I examined 
my desk, and set my papers in order ; read some, and 
played a little : in the evening we pursued our studies 
as usual ; which, although serious, we find very delightful. 
We so far varied them as to read the life of our author, 
William Jones, instead of his works : though delightful 
throughout, his dying moments gave us the greatest com- 
fort. A little while before his dissolution, as his curate was 
standing by his bedside, he desired him to read the 71st 
psalm, which he had no sooner done, than, taking him by 
the hand, he said, " If this be dying I had no idea what 
dying was before ;" adding, in a stronger voice, " thank 
God, thank God, it is no worse !" He had long very much 
dreaded the pains of death : — you may be sure we read 
the psalm. Was it trifling, or was it habit, or will you 
dignify it with the name of tranquillity, that after such se- 
rious contemplation, we went to our usual amusement? 
and that I finish this by telling you we added seven points 
to our score ? Adieu. Let us have good news from you 
on Sunday, and our hearts will know no sorrow. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 



196 

Although an active mind thus rendered his retirement 
both busy and cheerful, Dr. Bard still peculiarly enjoyed 
an occasional return to the stir and bustle of active life. 
The following short letter to his son, is a cheerful picture 
of one verging towards his eightieth year. 

New-York, Tuesday evening, 1818. 
My Dear William, 

We arrived this morning in a cold 
rain ; but a hearty reception by kind friends, with a warm 
breakfast and good fire, soon made us comfortable. Since 
that I have not been idle ; but after presiding at a meeting 
of the Historical Society, took a peep at the range of buil- 
dings appropiated to the Fine Arts, Literary Societies, &c. 
which may be made a noble institution. After that I 
drank coffee at Col. T.'s, visited his pictures, and re- 
ceived much information from Dr. M. on the subject of 
the aborigines of our country, founded on their remains 
found in the great western caverns, which seem to have 
been used as places of refuge. 

Such society rubs off our rust and sharpens our edge 5 
making us not only brighter to the eye, but fitter for use. 
I send this to the office to-night. Be you as punctual as I 
am, and do not fail to give us either the comfort of know- 
ing you are well, or, if you cannot do that, the satisfaction 
of coming to comfort you. God bless you all. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

Of Dr. Bard's foreign correspondence, I find no re- 
mains. In early life, it was extensive ; in middle life. 



somewhat narrowed by want of leisure : and in old age, 
by want, perhaps, of inclination. But whatever there was 
has perished. Dr. B. appears to have valued it merely 
as an interchange of present gratification, and to have 
taken no pains to preserve it ; indeed he was more than 
usually careless, both of his own and his correspondents' 
letters. The former, it may be added, never were copied. 
He wrote as he spoke, from the impulse of feeling. 

Among a few late letters, however, I find two from his 
old friend Lindley Murray, the grammarian : a correspon- 
dence renewed, it would seem, after a long silence. 

Holdgate, York. June 6, 1306. 

I was lately informed by my brother, that my little 
-'- Spelling Book" met the approbation of my very worthy 
friend, Dr. Bard. This information afforded me peculiar 
pleasure, both as flattering to the author, and as tending 
to increase the reputation and currency of the book in his 
native country. 

I have employed a considerable portion of my leisure 
time in endeavouring to facilitate the acquisition of the 
English language, and in some degree, to regulate it. The 
favourable sentiments entertained of the Spelling Book, 
induce me to hope, that the Grammar, in its improved 
state, will also be approved by my friend. I have, there- 
fore, sent a copy of the last edition, together with its aux- 
iliary, the Exercises and Key of these books ; I beg your 
acceptance, as a small testimony of my continued esteem 
and regard : and beg the favour of your suggesting any 
remarks by which they may be still further improved. 
Distant as I am from my native country, and the friends 
of my early life, and although many years have rolled 



.\ 



^**^% 198 ^ 

away since 1 enjoyed the pleasure derived from them, I 
am far from having forgotten those pleasing attachments. 
Among them I often recollect the friendship and esteem 
which I entertained for my much respected friend, Dr. 
Bard ; and I have felt interested in his prosperity and hap- 
piness. The information which I have occasionally re- 
ceived, has been very gratifying to me. — I was particu- 
larly pleased to find that you had retired from the hurried 
and bustling scenes of life. I trust that you have found 
your retreat not only " otium cum dignitate," but a source 
of moral and religious improvement ; a happy preparation 
for that permanent state of being which cannot now be 
far distant ; and where, perhaps, we may again meet and 
rejoice together for ever. 

For twenty years I have not been able to walk more 
than a few steps in the course of each day. — 1 have not, 
however, much pain. — I ride out daily, and, in short, pos- 
sess so many comforts, that I can scarcely term my situa- 
tion an affliction. This information I communicate to 
gratify the curiosity of friendship. 

Your faithful friend, 

LINDLEY MURRAY. 

Holdgate, near York, Jan. 30, 1812. 
The letter which my dear and much respected friend, 
Dr. Bard, sent to me a few months since, was received 
and read by me with great satisfaction. To perceive that 
1 was still remembered by one whom from early life I 
loved and esteemed, could not but be in a high degree 
gratifying to my best feelings. I rejoiced to find that my 
friend enjoyed good health, was still blessed with his 
amiable Mary, and happy in a dutiful and prosperous 



199 

family of children, and surrounded by easy and plentiful 
circumstances. Above all, I was cheered and gratified by 
the pious and grateful sentiments which breathed in his 
letter, towards the bountiful Giver of all his blessings. 
This devout spirit contains in itself great enjoyment, 
spreads a brightness over every innocent gratification, 
and fills the mind with the most solid and delightful anti- 
cipations of future happiness. May you, my dear friends, 
be blessed with this spirit of peace and love to the latest 
period of your lives ; and may it live and flourish also in 
your dear children. You have known what the world can 
afford, — you have seen it in its most flattering dress, and 
have happily retired from those parts of it which afford 
no solid or durable satisfaction : infinitely greater enjoy- 
ments, I have no doubt, attend you both in your peaceful 
retreat. It gives me pleasure to perceive that my good 
friend is industriously employed in the superintendence of 
his estate ; and particularly in the breed and improve- 
ment of sheep. This pastoral office must often carry 
back his thoughts to the happy times of innocence and 
simplicity ; and, I trust, frequently raises in his mind this 
comforting aspiration, " The Lord is my Shepherd, there- 
fore I shall not want." Bishop Home says, with devout 
propriety, u Every flock that we see, should remind us of 
our necessities ; and every pasture, of that love by which 
they are so bountifully supplied." 

The kind inquiry after my health, induces me to say that 
it is much better than I could have expected, after so long 
and great confinement. For twenty-four years after I 
came to this country, I had no exercise but in a carriage, 
or garden chair; and for two years past, I have not been 



200 

out of the house. At first view, this appears to be a de- 
plorable condition ; but I find it otherwise. I am persua- 
ded that Infinite Goodness knows what is best for me, and 
has assigned me my proper allotment. In His merciful 
appointment I acquiesce. I have many enjoyments yet 
left me. As my prime temporal blessing, I consider the 
continued life and tolerable health of my ever faithful and 
affectionate partner. I have special cause to be grateful 
to Heaven for this inestimable gift. My dear friends, fare- 
well : that the Divine benediction may rest upon you both, 
and make you more and more grateful as you approach 
those celestial mansions which are to crown your present 
blessings, is the fervent desire of your sincere friend, 

LINDLEY MURRAY. 



In the year 1813, a separation wisely took place be- 
tween Columbia College, and its medical school. Such 
a union, though favourable for a time, it was thought, 
should cease with that necessity from which it originated, 
inadequate patronage. Besides, it was argued, that sub- 
division of mental, as of bodily aim, both saves time 
and increases power ; and is not only an important, but 
a necessary step, in the progress of modern science. 
Indeed, experience has proved such continued union to 
be unfavourable. The interests of the two are indepen- 
dent, if not diverse ; and, in general, the prosperity of 
one has been found to absorb the energies of the other. 
Collegiate education should be distinguished from profes- 



201 

sional : the object of the first being, in the words of Locke, 
" not to make young men perfect in any one science, but 
so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them 
capable of any." Upon this dissolution, the Regents of the 
university new modelled the medical college, which they 
had already established ; and in the appointment of its offi- 
cers Dr. Bard was called to the Presidency. His unwil- 
lingness to accept this situation, was, at length, overcome 
by the solicitations of friendship, and the assurance that 
it would make but few calls upon time, already happily 
and usefully employed. In this honourable station he 
continued during life ; and rendered his official duties va- 
luable to the institution by the warm interest he took in 
its success, the judicious plans he framed for its improve- 
ment, and the impressive discourses with which he ac- 
companied the delivery of its degrees. In these he drew, 
with his accustomed energy, a vivid picture of the accom- 
plished physician, — in his education, — in his subsequent 
improvement, — in his professional conduct, and in his pri- 
vate deportment. Over all these sketches he threw a 
moral and religious colouring, which gave them richness 
and force ; showing the happy influence which pure morals 
and firm religious principles must ever exercise over profes- 
sional success : and concluding one of his last, as already 
noticed, with the character of Boerhaave, as approaching 
to this rare union of the physician, the scholar, the gen- 
tleman, and the Christian. Besides these, which form a 
V tablature" of the medical character, there are others 
more scientific ; in which he treats of the nature and 
value of medical experience, the choice of a medical 

26 



202 

library, and the dangers arising from theory and hasty 
induction. 

Among the few drawbacks to the satisfaction of this sta- 
tion, and indeed almost the only serious one to the peace 
and harmony of a long and active life, was an unhappy 
difference between himself and the Professors of the insti- 
tution over which he presided. With a mind inclined to 
peace, Dr. Bard was not of a spirit to submit to what he 
considered injustice : though not anxious for the station^ 
he was not willing to be forced from it by intrigue ; and 
in the discussions which ensued, he displayed the vigour 
and acuteness of an unbroken mind. These discussions ter- 
minated in an appeal to the Board of Regents, the only 
rightful judges of the matter in dispute ; and from them 
he received an unqualified decision in his favour. 

But to return to the more pleasing scenes of domestic life. 

The marriage of his younger daughter, which took place 
in 1 809, added another to the family circle of this patri- 
archal establishment. The child of his age, his pupil at 
home, and companion abroad, she had grown up with, 
perhaps, a double share of his anxiety and affection ; and 
when the increasing demands of her education required 
an occasional separation from him, the frequency and ten- 
derness of his letters evince how much his heart was 
wrapt up in her improvement and happiness. The inser- 
tion of one may be pardoned to the writer, as a warm 
picture of parental pride and affection ; and to him at 
least, doubly pleasing, by the associations with which it is 
connected. 

The following is a joint letter from both her parents, — 
the first part from her mother. 



203 



Hyde Park, Dec. 27, 1804. 

It is impossible, my dearest child, to express by words 
all the good I wish you at this or any other season. It is my 
daily prayer that health, innocence, and a contented mind, 
may long be your portion. God grant a continuance of 
them, and all other blessings to you ; and that you may 
enjoy this, and many ensuing years, with moderation and 
thankfulness. 

How do you find yourself at such a distance from so 
many you love, and who love you ? Just, I hope, as I wish 
you, enjoying, with gratitude, the attention of your kind 
friends, and the new scene you are in. 

I neglected to mention in my last some things I wish 
you to take notice of in your journey, — in particular, your 
great grandfather's house in Bristol ; where, in my child- 
hood, I spent so many happy hours. The little stream, 
also, near it, whither I used to carry my ducks, and which, 
I then thought, more beautiful than any stream in the world. 

Your affectionate mother. 

My Dear Child, 

Your mother tells me I must fill this 
page ; but where shall I find matter ? our uniform life 
affords neither variety nor anecdote. Had I, indeed, the 
talent to dress the same sentiments in all the beautiful 
variety of Madame De Sevigne, I might say again and 
again, how much we love you, — that we are proud of 
you 5 — and that even at a distance, you gild the evening 
of our lives with the sunshine and joy of youth. But you 



204 

know all this already, and repetition cannot make it more 
true. I will, therefore, only charge you to return us that 
portion of our treasure which is in your keeping, — your 
own health and happiness, bright and unalloyed. 

I have received great pleasure in the beautiful speci- 
mens you have sent me of your skill and industry in draw- 
ing ; and from your future improvement I promise myself 
a source of delight all the rest of my life. I have placed 
them up against the wall opposite my seat, that I may 
have the pleasure of constantly viewing them, and antici- 
pating the pleasure we shall enjoy when we come to ap- 
ply your talent to a thousand useful and ornamental sub- 
jects. Your fondness for gardening and painting have 
ever been strong passions of mine, and we will now culti- 
vate them together; which will add the greatest zest 
to my enjoyment, and lay up for you a never failing 
source of the most innocent delight. Every thing con- 
nected with gardening, drawing, and the study of nature, 
is virtuous, feminine, and elegant : every sentiment and 
feeling they excite is peculiarly becoming in a female 
mind : they soften and harmonize the affections, smooth 
all the asperities of character, and even allay the bitter- 
ness of disappointment and sorrow. Let nothing, there- 
fore, my good girl, slacken your industry in this pursuit ; 
and be careful not to divide your attention between too 
many objects ; as mediocrity in any accomplishment will 
satisfy neither me nor you. 

But I had almost forgot to bestow upon you your just 
praise for the readiness with which you have complied 
with my desire to avoid large parties : they consume a 



205 

great deal of time, with little pleasure, and no improve- 
ment. It is my boast to have children who know how to 
submit to what is right without repining. 

God bless you, my dear child. 

S. B. 

To the ordinary evening devotions of the day on which 
her marriage took place, Dr. Bard added the following 
short, but heartfelt prayer : an incident mentioned only as 
displaying the practical character of his religion, which 
he used, on all marked occasions either of joy or sorrow, 
as the most powerful means to excite gratitude or furnish 
consolation. 

" O, most gracious God, bless with thy favour and pro- 
tection our children, who have in thy presence become 
united in marriage. May they place their hopes of hap- 
piness first in love to thee, faith in thy promises, obe- 
dience to thy commands, and submission to thy will ; and 
next to these, in a sincere, tender, and generous friendship 
for each other. — May these affections brighten all their 
prospects and joys in life ; and may they always fly to 
these for comfort under the misfortunes or afflictions with 
which thou shalt see fit to prove them. — May we, their 
parents, enjoy, while we live, the unspeakable blessing of 
witnessing their virtues and happiness : and, when death 
approaches, may the blessed hope of meeting again in thy 
presence for ever, cheer our last hour, and soften the pain 
of parting." 

In confirmation of this trait of character, a similar ef- 
fusion of pious thankfulness is subjoined, penned a little 



206 

before this period, on the unexpected recovery of his 
eldest son-in-law from a long and dangerous illness. 

" Great and mighty God, who bringest down to the 
grave, and raisest up from it again, we bless thy wonder- 
ful goodness for having, in some measure, turned our hea- 
viness into joy, by relieving our friend and son from great 
and imminent danger. Blessed be thy name, that didst not 
forsake him in his distress, but hast visited him with comfort 
from above, supported him with patience and submission 
to thy will, and hast, at length, afforded him some proba- 
hle hope of recovery. Perfect, we beseech thee, thy mer- 
cy towards him, and prosper the means which shall be 
made use of for his cure ; that being restored to health, 
he may live to bless thy holy name for all thy goodness 
towards him, and manifest his gratitude by a life of holi- 
ness and obedience to thy commands : and may he still 
be spared many years, a protector and comfort to his fa- 
mily, and an example to all around him. 

" Sanctify, O Lord, we beseech thee, this and every 
other instance of sorrow and calamity, with which, in mer- 
cy, thou shalt please to visit us, to our improvement in 
virtue and true religion. — May they bring us to true re- 
pentance for all the sins and errors of our past lives : — 
may they strengthen our hope in thy mercies, and our 
faith in thy promises ; and so teach us to number our days 
that we may apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly 
wisdom, which not only brings with it peace and happi- 
ness in this world, but leads to everlasting joy in that 
which is to come. Grant these our humble petitions, O 
merciful God, for the sake of our blessed Saviour, Jesus 
Christ. Amen. , 



207 

The same warmth of devotional gratitude breathes in 
the following extract from a letter on a similar, though 
subsequent, occasion. 

Hyde Park, Dec. 27, 1812. 
Dear Hosack, 

Last evening I felt myself amongst the 
happiest of happy parents, surrounded by every branch of 
my family, and my son M'V. among them, restored to 
perfect health. 

I cannot express my wishes and prayers for your hap- 
piness at this season of festivity and congratulation, in 
stronger terms, than that, at my time of life, you may sit 
down to a festive family board with feelings of equal enjoy- 
ment, and sentiments of equal gratitude for similar bles- 
sings. We closed the evening with Dr. Franklin's matri- 
monial song; in every stanza of which, I joined heart and 
voice. May this prime source of family concord and happi- 
ness be always added to the catalogue of your blessings. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. B. 

Among the family arrangements produced by his daugh- 
ter's marriage and removal from home, was one which 
supplied her loss, and gladdened the remainder of Dr. 
Bard's life, by affording him the uninterrupted society of 
an affectionate and watchful son. Increasing years ren- 
dering the care of his large establishment too great a bur- 
then, he transferred the management of it to his son, who 
united his family to that of his father's ; disburthening him 



208 

of many cares, and leaving him free to his favourite em- 
ployments in the green house and garden. 

The following is an answer to his letter, communica- 
ting this arrangement, to one of his oldest and most es- 
teemed friends. As death has now set to this friendship 
a mutual seal, to surviving friends it may not be an un- 
pleasing memorial. 

New-York, March 25, 1811. 

Your schemes, my dear friend, and mine, nearly accord. 
Taking your son into your family, will save you, as it does 
me, a great deal of care, that now, when we are not so 
young, (excuse me from saying when we are old,) it is our 
duty to get rid of, that we may go quietly through the re- 
maining part of life, and be led to fix our hearts there 
where only true joys are to be found. 

We have both of us been blessed through life : for my 
own part, I think that every moment that my heart is not 
filled with cheerfulness and praise, for the mercies that 
have surrounded, and do still surround me, I am so far un- 
gratefully forgetting the Hand that bestowed them. And 
when my time of life presents itself to my consideration, 
(and how few of us arrive even at the years I have passed,) 
I endeavour to resign myself to the will of God, — merci- 
ful and just. 

When I look back, the years I have passed seem won- 
derfully short ; and those that are to come, how short may 
they be ! Under these feelings, our greatest comfort must 
consist in enjoying, with cheerful resignation, what time 
may be remaining, whether days or years. 



209 

u Stat sua cuique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus." 
In all our ways let us acknowledge God, and he will di- 
rect our steps ; and even when we walk through the val- 
ley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil j his rod 
of grace and staff of hope, will defend, support, and com- 
fort us* 

Yours affectionately, 

ROBERT WATTS. 

To the favourite occupations just mentioned Dr. Bard 
now devoted himself with an ardour which made them seem 
rather a change of labour, than a respite from it. In the 
flowers and fruits of the garden he became a learned and 
skilful horticulturist, — conversed, read, and wrote, upon 
the subject, — laid exactions on all his friends who could aid 
him in obtaining what was rare, beautiful, or excellent, in 
its kind, — drew from England its smaller fruits, — the larger 
ones from France, melons from Italy, and vines from Ma- 
deira, — managing them all with a varied yet experimental 
skill, which baffled the comprehension of minds of slower 
perception. These plans, though novel, were, in general, 
judicious ; being the result of much reading, and long ex- 
perience, and above all, of an imagination trained to what 
Bacon terms " tentative experiments." 

In the construction of a conservatory he displayed 
much of this talent, it being the first, in that northern cli- 
mate, which substituted, with success, the heat of fermen- 
tation for the more expensive and dangerous one of com- 
bustion. In this, during the severity of the winter, he 
would often pass the greater part of the day, engaged in 
his usual occupations of reading and writing, or his fa- 

27 



210 

vourite amusement of chess ; and welcoming his friends 
who called upon him, to use his own sportive language, to 
the " little tropical region of his own creation." 

Peculiarly touched with the smiling beauties of nature, 
he was still a lover of it in every form, and would often 
enforce upon the young the moral value of that sensibility, 
in the words of a poet whom similarity of tastes had made 
a favourite. 

u Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store 

Of charms, which nature to her votary yields ; 

The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, 

The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; 

All that the genial ray of morning gilds, 

And all that echoes to the song of even ; 

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, 

And all the dread magnificence of heaven, 

Oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ?" 

In the year 1811, circumstances favouring its establish- 
ment, the church of St. James, at Hyde Park, was erected, 
of which Dr. Bard was the founder ; a term of distinction, 
not, perhaps, strictly applicable ; but morally just, as being 
the individual to whose unwearied exertions, and superior 
liberality, its success is to be attributed. Attached, not 
only by habit, but by rational conviction, to the Episcopal 
branch of the Protestant Church, Dr. Bard had long been 
anxious for its establishment in his neighbourhood. Among 
the contending claims of Christian churches, he regarded 
this not merely with respect for its antiquity, but with 
veneration for its origin ; approving it as the purest, he 
preferred it also as the most rational and liberal of 



211 

churches in the creed it imposes ; and often eulogized it 
inlanguage that would do no discredit to the ablest of its 
advocates. He maintained it to be the only church of 
Christendom which held, with even scales, the nice ba- 
lance between authority and private opinion ; which puz- 
zled the understanding with no metaphysical subtleties, 
imposed upon the conscience no dubious points of doc- 
trine or practice ; but laying, broad and deep, the funda- 
mental truths of Revelation, left the mind, unshackled 
upon minor points, to free and unbiassed examination. 

Among these fundamental points he regarded, as one, 
that which is at issue between Socinians and the great 
body of Christians. Their error he considered to be 
radical : to use his own strong language, " it cuts the 
heart out of Christianity, and leaves it cold and com- 
fortless.' 5 

Of his opinion on this subject, if any farther proof were 
wanted by those who may have mistaken his liberality for 
indifference, or the admission of other's right of judgment 
for participation in their errors, it will be found in the 
reverential and feeling acknowledgment he makes of this 
great truth, in every one of his prayers and religious re- 
flections. How little, too, he was inclined to compromise 
it, may be learned from an anecdote still in the recollection 
of some of his friends, of the manner in which, at his own 
table, he silenced one of its leading advocates, not only put- 
ting him down by argument, but checking, by a calm and 
dignified reproof, all further discussion of a subject which he 
held too sacred to be lightly handled. Nor was he, while 
thus exalting doctrine, inclined to depreciate morality. 
He looked upon Christianity as a living fountain of good 



212 

works ; and selected the name of the apostle James for 
that of the church he founded, in reference to the great 
practical principle that Evangelist lays down, that " faith 
without works is dead." These sentiments he held firmly, 
openly, and warmly; inculcating them upon the young, 
maintaining them with his equals, and by his practice, re- 
commending them to all. 

Among the most pleasing evidences of these feelings of 
religion, before the erection of the church, was his appli- 
cation of the day devoted to its public duties. The lec- 
tures he prepared for these occasions, were in part origi- 
nal, and, in part, compilations from the earlier divines of 
the Church of England, who were his peculiar favou- 
rites. These, together with the liturgy of the church, 
afforded him ample materials for domestic service ; which 
was rendered deeply impressive by his earnestness and 
tones of sincerity. Indeed, so highly did he value these 
public exercises of devotion, as means both of instruction 
and conviction, that after the erection of the church, in 
order to supply the occasional absence of its rector, he 
submitted to the necessity, at the age of seventy years, of 
receiving, from episcopal authority, the license required 
to entitle him to act as lay reader in the church. 

In addition to these proofs of personal piety, it may be 
permitted to add the following extract from the form of 
daily devotion made use of by himself and wife. 

" O God ! enlighten our understanding that we may 
comprehend thy will, strengthen our resolution to obey 
thy commands, endow us with resignation under thy dis- 
pensations, and fill our hearts with love and gratitude for 
all thv benefits. Give unto us, O Lord, whose lives thou 



213 

hast continued to so late a day, sincere and true repen- 
tance, and grant, that as age advances upon us, our minds 
may be more and more enlightened by the knowledge of 
thy will ; more resigned to thy dispensations, and more 
invigorated with the resolution to obey thy commands. 
Calm all our thoughts and fears ; give peace and quiet to 
our latter days ; and so support us, by thy grace, through 
the weakness and infirmities of age, that we may die in 
humble hope and confidence of thy merciful pardon and 
acceptance through the merits of our Redeemer." 

In one devotional habit he resembled Boerhaave ; and, 
perhaps, was guided by his example. He regularly devo- 
ted a part of his early morning to religious reading and 
reflection ; by which, as he himself expressed it, he en- 
deavoured to " set his mind to a right edge for the bu- 
siness of the day." Among the works he selected for 
this purpose, his favourite eyx* 1 ?^ 1 *) nex * to the Book 
of Psalms, were the " Sacra Privata," of Bishop Wilson, 
and Johnson's " Prayers and Meditations." Of the lat- 
ter work he was peculiarly fond ; regarding, as its singular 
excellence, that tone of calm, but full sincerity, which ren- 
ders it the picture, not only of the feelings of the writer, 
but of the wants of the reader ; and that (setting aside its 
morbid melancholy,) it gave the picture of the human 
heart under the influence of religion : — a picture which, 
amid all our disputes, varies, perhaps, only in the depth of 
its shades, or the brilliancy of its colouring. 

The following letter, about this period, was from an old 
and valued friend, who now rests from the labours of a 
life void of guile, and consecrated to religious benevo- 
lence. 



214 



Burlington, January 13, 1812. 

We rejoice with you in the progress of religious senti- 
ment, and join you in thankfulness that it hath pleased 
God to make our young friend, the rector, the means of 
promoting its advancement in your neighbourhood. God 
has been pleased, my dear friend, to afford you the abi- 
lity, and to give you the heart, to make great exertions in 
his service, and has shown you his favour, in permitting 
you to accomplish a work of so much present usefulness, 
and of such future promise. I trust that the same dispo- 
sition in which your children partake with you, will be 
continued to their descendants : and that, if the inhabitants 
of a better world be spectators of the employments of 
this, you may be privileged to behold your descendants, 
from generation to generation, offering up the sacrifice of 
humble and contrite hearts in that house which God has 
enabled you to erect for his worship and service. 

It is, indeed, a great gratification to your friends, that 
your visit to them, though short, was both pleasant and 
advantageous to your health, which is so valuable to them 
all. We hope a kind Providence will enable you fre- 
quently to repeat it ; and you will be doubly welcome in 
bringing our dear Mrs. Bard with you. Change of air, and 
variety of objects, will be agreeable to her ; among which, 
she will ever see the countenance of friends gladdened by 
her arrival, if it be the will of God to permit us mutually 
to realize such pleasing expectations. 

The intimate acquaintance and friendship which has 
been formed between our children, is to us a cause of 



21a 

gratitude to the Author of every mercy and blessing. 
Yours has, with great justice, been styled " a family of 
love." — You can readily suppose then, that to give our 
child the benefit of daily viewing such an example, we 
gladly are deprived of her company for a season ; and our 
comfort is in proportion to our love, in the prospect of 
her advantages, and the hope that she will improve them. 
Very truly yours, 

JOSHUA M. WALLACE. 

In the visit here alluded to, Dr. Bard, in passing through 
Princeton at the period of its public commencement, was 
waited upon by a deputation from the Trustees of that in- 
stitution, and the honorary degree of LL.D. conferred 
upon him. 

In the church thus erected, Dr. Bard continued to find, 
unto the very close of life, a more than ordinary comfort 
and satisfaction. " No equal expenditure of money," he 
was used to say, " had ever returned to him so large an in- 
terest ;" and by those who ever saw him engaged in its ser- 
vices, its truth will not be doubted. His venerable looks, 
his devout but animated manner, — his loud response, and 
eye glistening with gratitude and thankfulness, surrounded 
by children and grandchildren, form a picture on which 
memory loves to dwell. From these meetings, sanctified 
alike by devotion and family affection, he was rarely ab- 
sent. Sickness could hardly detain him ; and absence 
from home he always felt as a misfortune. A letter from 
him in New- York, terminates in these words : " I shall 
long to be with you to-morrow, and indeed shall be so in 
heart and mind ; as it is my intention to partake in the 



216 

the same comfortable sacrament at the same hour : and I 
most sincerely pray that it may tend to strengthen all our 
good resolutions, to increase our confidence and trust in 
the goodness and mercy of God, to add to all our inno- 
cent enjoyments, and to give us comfort and peace un- 
der every affliction/ 5 

How well his enjoyment of that day, when present, 
accorded with his prayers when absent, is hastily, but 
strongly, touched in the close of a letter from himself at 
home, to his daughter, after her settlement in New- York. 
" Joy and happiness, 55 says he, "return with your letters 
on Saturday ; and on Sunday, calm reflection ends in gra- 
titude, tranquillity, and peace. 55 

His eldest grandson having determined on medicine as 
his profession, renewed all the ardour of his grandfathers 
mind to prepare him for it, and advance him in it. He 
became not only his instructer, but his companion in all 
his medical pursuits ; aided him in the arrangements of 
his laboratory, led the way in experiment, and ran over 
the whole circle of his former studies with equal enthu- 
siasm, and greater pleasure, as it was now connected with 
the improvement of one endeared to him by the ties of 
kindred ; and the display of such traits of character as 
promised fully to repay his exertions. 

After a summer of preparatory study, his pupil became 
a student of the college over which he himself presided, 
and a private pupil of his friend and former partner, Dr. 
David Hosack. These circumstances are mentioned as in- 
troductive of the letters which follow ; and as illustrative 
of the position, that the powers of usefulness are not ne- 
cessarily lost with age, — that feebleness of mind is rather 



217 

the rust of indolence than the decay of nature ; and that 
old age may continue, to the very latest period, honoured, 
and beloved ; if, instead of driving away the young by 
austerity, it will teach them by its experience, instruct 
them with its learning, and turn into love and veneration 
those natural feelings of respect with which it is regarded. 
" Non cani non rugae repente auctoritatem arripere pos- 
sunt, sed honeste acta superior setas fructus capit aucto- 
ritatis extremos." Cic. 

Of this position, few have better displayed the truth 
than Dr. Bard, whose influence grew with his years, and 
who was alike the counsellor and the companion, the in- 
structer and the friend, of all the young persons who were 
so fortunate as to have a claim upon his attentions. To 
them this intercourse was not only improving, but delight- 
ful, for the flow of imagination continued in him unaba- 
ted : the materials of this faculty, being continually re- 
plenished by study and active thought, it never sunk into 
that dulness or childishness, which is the result, not so 
much of advancing years, as of an indolent or exhausted 
mind. His plans for their improvement were novel and 
varied, his pursuit of them eager, his commendation warm 
and animated, and his reproof, though tender, " vehement 
in love." 

The correspondence which, under these circumstances, 
he maintained with his grandson, is full of instruction and 
interest ; abounding in lessons of practical wisdom, and 
containing the result of his medical experience upon most 
of the subjects which, during its continuance, attracted 
public or professional attention. Adhering to the moral 
lesson which this memoir is designed to inculcate, the 

28 



218 

only use I shall make of these letters is, by a few ex- 
tracts, to show the benevolent energy of that mind, which, 
at an age when life is proverbially "but trouble and sor- 
row," could rise above the infirmities and anxieties of 
that winter of life, and enjoy, as it were, a second spring, 
in the prospects and improvement of youth. Age, doubt- 
less, will ever have weaknesses and sorrows of its own 
sufficient to make it an object of tenderness, if not of 
commiseration : but it cheers the moral eye to be able 
to rest on such a picture of old age as is here exhibited. 
It not only gratifies our benevolent feelings, but gives us 
a selfish pleasure in removing, from that period of life to 
which we ourselves hope to attain, the gloom which or- 
dinarily hangs over it : and farther, it tends to put down 
the debasing system of materialism, in exhibiting to us 
the mental powers triumphing over bodily infirmity, and 
rising superior to the decay, if not the wreck, of that 
nice organization to which their very existence is falsely 
attributed, 

Hyde Park, 1817. 
My Dear Frank, 

I have explained to Dr. H. at large my 
views as to the plan of your education : I shall, therefore, 
only advise you, in attending the public lectures, to hear 
attentively what the Professors shall deliver, and not at- 
tempt writing notes, except only, the heads of the lecture, 
so as to be able to recall the general topics to your recol- 
lection. I had much rather you took pains to understand 
and recollect what is said than to put it upon paper. 



219 

As is the case with every branch of learning, the first 
six months will be the least agreeable to you ; but in pro- 
portion as you apply them with diligence all the rest will 
be easy and pleasant. I will, therefore, beg you to re- 
collect, that your own respectability, your parents' happi- 
ness, your brothers 5 and sister's prosperity, all, perhaps, de- 
pend on the use you make of the next six months. I most 
sincerely pray that God will take you under his special 
protection, guide you in the paths of virtue and happi- 
ness, bless you, and in you all your dear friends. 

Go on, therefore, my dear son : to knowledge add vir- 
tue, to industry add prudence; and recommend these 
strong features of character by the suavity of your man- 
ners. You will thus, by an honourable and virtuous 
course, founded on religion, secure your own respectabi- 
lity, prosperity, and happiness ; and in that make happy 
and reward your friends, for all their anxiety and exertions 
on your behalf. * * * * * 

Your last letter, my dear Frank, has given me, and all 
your friends, real pleasure and very great satisfaction. It 
bespeaks a good heart and a sound understanding, while 
the sentiments it contains afford us the best assurance of 
your future happiness, respectability, and success ; and as 
these are objects in which we are all deeply interested, it 
has gratified us in proportion to their importance. 

I have always observed, that those men who have ar- 
rived at the greatest celebrity in any profession were most 
distinguished for their knowledge in some one branch of 
it ; to which, from taste and inclination, they had paid the 
greatest attention. Pursue anatomy, therefore, if your 
taste for it continue, not only as a branch of medical 



220 

study, of which, among many others, it is necessary to ac- 
quire a general knowledge, but as a separate science, which 
may confer upon you celebrity and distinction. 

I promise myself great pleasure next summer, and for 
the few I have still to enjoy, in studying anew all these 
branches of my profession with you. 1 really find as much 
pleasure in them now as I ever did ; and contributing to 
your progress will add a new and more exquisite delight 
to them. Indeed, I can conceive no object so delightfully 
and deeply interesting as a young man seriously engaged 
in qualifying himself to assume a respectable station in 
society, to add to the general reputation of his family and 
friends, and to bless them by the contemplation of his vir- 
tues, his reputation, and prosperity. What then must be 
my feelings, when I see such prospects among those I love 
most. Adieu, my dear boy ; may God assist you in all vir- 
tuous conduct." 

On the subject of that sectarian feeling which embit- 
tered some recent medical theories, he thus wisely cau- 
tions his pupil. 

" I write you this letter earnestly to beg that you will 
carefully avoid entering into any of the warmth which 
will be displayed on this occasion : 1 esteem and respect 

£) r . 5 but am sorry to see him engaging in this 

question with the zeal of a partisan. Keep your mind 
free from prejudice, and open to conviction, until you 
have gone through the course of reading I have chalked 
out to you. After you have stored your mind with the so- 
lid principles of your profession, which you will learn 
from those I think the purest sources of information, the 






221 

writers who flourished within a century after the age of 
Sydenham; you will be better able to enter into con- 
troversy, and to judge, with impartiality, on all novel and 
disputed opinions. The very inconsiderate haste with 
which these new opinions have been adopted, and the in- 
temperate zeal with which they have been propagated, 
put me in mind of those sects in religion, whose crude 
opinions at first spread like wild fire among their disciples ; 
but whom the sobering hand of time has now brought 
back to a more rational and sober system. I have no 
doubt such will be the result of this subject of contagion ; 
on which, at present, so much enthusiasm and irritation is 
manifested. 

Study and reflection will, I doubt not, bring you to a 
correct opinion on this subject : I only pray you, at pre- 
sent, to enter into no dispute on it ; be not numbered 
among the partisans of any leader, but coolly and dispas- 
sionately inquire, beginning with those writers who had 
no particular theory to support, and were animated by no 
party zeal 5 and then judge for yourself. 

Write to me, my dear son, and be particular with re- 
gard to the objects of your present studies. I am so 
deeply interested in your welfare, that one of the greatest 
pleasures I can enjoy is to be told the manner in which 
you are laying the foundation of a useful and happy life. 
God bless you. 

Affectionately yours, 

S. B. 

Of his own habits of study at an age which entitles to 
repose, the following extract may give some idea. 



222 

i; I am out of professional reading at present, which I 
find very unpleasant: accustomed to regular study, it 
leaves a blank in my time which, during this hot weather, 
I find it difficult to fill up agreeably. Do see Dr. S. and 
procure from him M. Bovine. I saw some time ago the 
publication of Dewes's work : I should be very glad to see 
it : mention it to Collins. Send me likewise, from the hos- 
pital library, Aitkins's Principles, and Barnes on the Gra- 
vid Uterus. I return Medical Observations and Inqui- 
ries, Vols. IV & V, which see properly discharged. 55 

On occasion of some threatened misfortunes, he thus 
writes in a tone of manly confidence arising out of reli- 
gious resignation. 

" I sometimes suffer much anxiety, and no little depres- 
sion of spirits when thinking on these subjects ; but again, 
when I consider all the blessings we enjoy, and all we 
have a probability of enjoying, I am ashamed at my in- 
gratitude and cowardice, and want of faith and trust in 
that Good Being who has conducted me hitherto, with 
unusual blessings, to so late a period of life. Let us, 
therefore, my dear son, do our part with steady perseve- 
rance and courage ; clap our own shoulders to the wheel 
of fortune whilst we pray, and trust in God to assist us. 

God bless you, my dear boy ; go on as you have begun, 
and always remember that it is virtue, knowledge, indus- 
try, and prudence, that make the man, and not riches. 55 

With increasing years generally comes an indifference 
towards the young. — With Dr. Bard, as already stated, it 
seemed remarkably the reverse. The comfort, the plea- 
sure, and the improvement, of the younger members of 
his numerous family were always to him subjects of inte- 



223 

rest and importance. He took pleasure in their society, 
caught animation from their eagerness, and guided and 
watched over them with all the zeal and interest of the 
most anxious parent. 

The following letter to a young grandson at school, will 
serve to show how prompt he was to turn the providen- 
tial occurrences of life to the inculcation of the highest 
wisdom. 

Hyde Park. 
My Dear Boy, 

Your dear cousin, Catharine, was yesterday 
morning released from her bed of pain and sickness, ex- 
changing this world, for one of perpetual bliss and happi- 
ness. This event will give you some painful reflections, 
and, I hope, occasion you to make some useful ones. You 
are still very young, and yet you have outlived a brother, 
a sister, and several cousins. — You will probably ask your- 
self, Why has God chosen to take them and leave me ? — 
To such a question we can make but one answer : their 
deaths were to them, unquestionably, instances of the Di- 
vine mercy and goodness, because they were taken away in 
the innocence of childhood : — your life is continued to you 
to be a trial of your virtue 5 and according to the use you 
make of the time still allowed you, will you owe your fu- 
ture happiness or misery, both in this world and the next. 
If you employ it in the acquisition of knowledge, and 
practice of virtue, it will secure respectability and hap- 
piness here, and eternal bliss hereafter. But, if you waste 
your time in idleness, or mispend it in vicious indulgen- 
ces, it will end in diserrace and misery in both. 



224 

You, my dear boy, have a great deal to answer for, — 
you are the only representative of a name which has 
hitherto preserved an honourable and virtuous reputation 
in the world, — your great grandfather, whose epitaph in 
our church speaks no more than the truth, was " admired 
for his talents, and beloved for his virtues, by all who 
knew him ;" and your dear father is the pride, and joy, and 
happiness, of his parents : and it is my most earnest prayer 
to Almighty God, that you may prove to your parents as 
great a source of pride and happiness. This I will not 
doubt, but cherish to my last hour the hope, that by in- 
dustriously employing all the opportunities of improve- 
ment he puts within your power, and by constantly imi- 
tating his example, you may prove as useful, honourable, 
and good a man. 

Your affectionate grandfather, 

S. B. 

The notice this letter contains of one source of the hap- 
piness he enjoyed, serves as an introduction to the follow- 
ing paper of religious reflections, found in his desk after 
his decease, in which he gratefully enumerates all those 
subjects of thankfulness which made him, in the eyes of 
others as well as himself, a rare and striking instance of 
felicitous old age. In this enumeration is certainly ma- 
nifest, if not peculiar blessings, at least a peculiar sense of 
them. 

" A cheerful heart, 
That tastes those gifts with joy," 

which well deserves to be added to the list, as one of the 
most important and least frequent. 



22/3 



Aprils 1813. 

c * Yesterday I entered into my seventy-first year ; and 
when I review my past life, I find, through the whole 
course of it, reason only for gratitude for an almost un- 
interrupted succession of blessings. 

" For the liberality, almost beyond his means, with 
which my kind and generous father conducted my educa- 
tion ; for his watchful care through the dangerous period 
of my youth ; for the excellent example of his just, honou- 
rable, useful, and benevolent life ; for his early introduc- 
tion into the business of my profession ; and for the inva- 
riable and affectionate friendship with which he treated 
me unto the day of his death. 

; - For the many kind friends who took me by the hand 
at my setting out in life, and for that success in my profes- 
sion, by which I have all along been comfortably suppor- 
ted, and enabled to lay by sufficient for an easy and inde- 
pendent old age. 

"For the many virtues, and most useful talents, of my 
dear and excellent wife ; for the good order, neatness, and 
liberal economy, with which she has always conducted 
my family ; for the steady, judicious, and affectionate 
care, with which she has assisted me in the education of 
our children, and to which, I firmly believe, we are, in 
a great measure, indebted for the happiness we now enjoy 
in their society ; for her courage and support, under do- 
mestic afflictions, professional vexations, pecuniary losses, 
and other difficulties I have met with ; for the constant 
love and fidelity with which she has blest me in health ; 
and for the patience with which she has endured my fref- 

29 



226 

fulness, and the tenderness with which she has almost an- 
nihilated the pains of sickness. 

" For the virtues and affectionate gratitude, the health 
and prosperity, of the children with which God has bless- 
ed my old age ; for the kind attention of the excellent 
wife he has given my son, by whom we are enabled to 
enjoy our present easy and tranquil life ; for the virtuous 
character, and kind and affectionate temper of the hus- 
bands he has given to our daughters, by which we enjoy 
the unspeakable happiness of seeing them happy, and 
being assured that whenever it shall please God to take 
us from them, we shall leave them under affectionate and 
tender protectors. 

" For the pleasing prattle, and promising virtues, of all 
our grandchildren ; for the society and affectionate friend- 
ship of my sisters, and brother-in-law, and for the hopes 
and promise of their children ; and lastly, for having, by 
his most gracious and singular providence, now in the 
evening of my days, brightened my setting sun, by col- 
lecting all these blessings around me. 

" Give me grace, O Heavenly Father, constantly to ac- 
knowledge in all these blessings thy most merciful good- 
ness ; to feel my own demerits ; to repent sincerely of the 
ingratitude of my past life ; and to dedicate the future to 
thy service, in promoting, to the utmost of my power, 
the temporal and eternal happiness of my family, friends, 
neighbours, and all others within the reach of my ability 
and influence. 

" Continue thy most gracious protection and blessing 
to me and my dear wife, during the residue of our lives ; 
sustain us in death, and finally pardon and accept us, for 



227 

the sake and merits of thy son Jesus Christ, our Lord and 
Saviour." 



In the year 1817, the first breach was made in the fa- 
mily circle at Hyde Park, by the removal of the writer of 
the present memoir, with his family, to New- York, upon 
being chosen to a professorship in the college at which 
he w r as educated. 

How actively Dr. Bard laboured in its procurement is 
gratefully remembered by one who already owed to him 
more than gratitude could repay. The influence he was 
able to exert at so advanced an age, and after twenty 
years of retirement, affords a strong proof of mental vi- 
gour. In this busy world, the influence of ordinary men 
is lost when they cease to be active ; to survive a long 
period of retirement, argues it both deeply rooted and 
well founded. 

An extract from a letter to his wife, while this matter 
was pending, is an evidence of his exertions and feelings 
on this occasion ; while it makes public a debt of grati- 
tude which the author is proud to acknowledge. 

New- York, Sept. 1, 1817. 
My Dear Mary, 

I have been working with all my might 
for that, in which, now that there is some chance of suc- 
cess, I begin to be almost afraid I shall succeed ; but I 
comfort myself, and I hope the consideration will comfort 



228 

you, that I verily believe it will contribute to the general 
happiness and interests of our family. Hitherto, my dear 
wife, we have been as happy in our retirement as we 
could ever hope to be ; and in the health and character of 
our children, and the promise of our grandchildren, have 
reaped an ample reward for all our exertions. But our 
family has now become so numerous that, like the bees, 
we must be content to swarm ; and, like them, I am stri- 
ving to furnish the young colony with a king and queen, 
who shall lead them forth, and establish them in their 
new habitations : nor can I think of any plan upon which 
we can do this with so little deprivation to ourselves, and 
so much benefit to our children. We shall not lose them 
altogether ; we shall still enjoy their society in summer, 
when our pastor will pray with us, and preach for us, and 
administer to us all the consolations of religion, and fos- 
ter his little church, and do good to his old friends as 
heretofore. This I look to for my pay, nor will I abate 
him one jot of it. In the spring, too, we can visit them ; 
and once a week we shall expect the boat, or the post, 
with that kind of anxiety which gives a spur to our 
wishes, and, like a good appetite, seasons our enjoyments. 

In short, my dearest friend, I think it my duty ; and if 
it please God to bless my endeavours, why then we must 
submit to any privations to which it may subject us : but 
if it fail, why then, I shall firmly believe it ought to fail ; 
and we shall all be equally content and happy without it." 

And in another letter, he adds : — 

u I never have found myself more deeply interested in 
any pursuit ; but after doing all I can, and upon such mo- 



229 

tives, and by such means, as I sincerely approve, I hope 
you, and I, and all of us, will be perfectly satisfied and 
content. Blind to the future, we can only learn what is 
best by the event." 

A subsequent letter to his daughter, speaks the same 
tone of energy and feeling. 

" You see I do not eat the bread of idleness, nor ever 
will, while I can serve my friends. Tell mother I am in 
good health, and, as you see, in tolerable spirits ; which, I 
hope, she will not be offended at, although I am absent 
from her. 

"I write this good news," he adds, alluding to his suc- 
cess, " to you, my dear child, in return for your charming 
and affectionate letter, that you may have the pleasure of 
announcing it to your husband ; and at the same time tell 
him, that although I would cheerfully do as much again 
to serve him, were you out of the question, yet, that I do 
it with double pleasure, as you are to partake of the be- 
nefit, and that I expect, in proportion as I love him, he 
will love you the more. 

Your affectionate father, 

S. B. 

That argument and reflection should be necessary to 
reconcile those concerned, to a change so beneficial, in a 
worldly point of view, is the strongest proof of the de- 
gree of that family union and happiness of which it re- 
quired the sacrifice ; and now that death and removal 
have so thinned its ranks and dispersed its members, that 
it appears but as a dream of an earlier and happier state, 
it may be allowed to one, who participated largely in its 



230 

pleasures, to recall a few touches of a picture of domes- 
tic felicity, rarely clouded by sorrow ; and still more 
rarely, by want of sympathy or affection. It will, at least, 
have the moral value of exhibiting, in the tablature of 
life, an old age of cheerful enjoyment, succeeding to a 
youth of industry, and a manhood of virtuous useful- 
ness. 

Although the noble mansion at Hyde Park formed the 
central point of attraction, for children, grandchildren, and 
kindred ; still each member of the circle, claiming, on all 
festive occasions, their turn of entertainment, diffused and 
multiplied the sources of an innocent hilarity, which none 
more than Dr. Bard enjoyed or promoted. 

Among these he seemed especially to enjoy the simple 
entertainments of the parsonage, as looking round on a 
scene of happiness more peculiarly of his own creation : 
and I think I see him yet, with a countenance beaming 
pleasure, praising the productions of the children, encou- 
raging the arrangements of their parents, or joining in the 
chorus of some little song prepared for the occasion. This 
was sometimes made the vehicle of sentiments which 
brought tears into his eyes. A trifle of that kind, which 
has been preserved, will indicate, at least, the feelings of 
love and veneration which he excited. 

Hail, to the sire that in calmness reposes, 
Circled by those whom his kindness has bless' d ; 
Round him, as life with its evening closes, 
He sinks in the arms of affection to rest. 
On his dear and reverend head. 
Heaven long its blessings shed, 
His presence to bless us, example to mend : 



231 

While loud the Hudson banks 
Echo our grateful thanks, 
Health to our father, companion and friend ! 

Hail to the sage, who, when old age advances, 
Crowns in the shade of retirement his days, 
Ended his full task, his eye upward glances, 
Waiting the meed of his great Master's praise. 

Heaven long the blessing spare, 

Of his kind and watchful care ; 
Wisdom to guide us, and skill to defend : 

While loud the Hudson banks 

Echo our grateful thanks, 
Health to our father, physician, and friend ! 

Hail to the stem, from which we're descended, 
Or grafted, like scions, on its evergreen root ; 
Round it we cling, by its branches defended, 
Rest in its shadow, and feed on its fruit. 
Long may that root be fed, 
Far may its branches spread ; 
Flourish in beauty, with fruitfulness bend ; 
While to the Hudson banks 
Echo our grateful thanks, 
Health to our father, our guardian, and friend ! 
Cottage, December 31, 1816. 

It may be permitted to one who regarded her with the 
feelings of a child, to record a similar tribute to the mild 
virtues of Mrs, Bard's character. It will illustrate, too, 
what was no small ingredient in the happiness it des- 
cribes, the good humoured competition which gave va- 
riety, if not spirit, to these family meetings. The evening 
succeeding that at the parsonage, being New- Year's day, 



232 

was spent at the house of the elder sister, when the fol- 
lowing effusion, equally unexpected, was introduced. 

The old year past, the new begun, 
A father's praise so ably sung, 

Our muse in vain may hope ; 
Still she would try on this glad day, 
In truth, if not in melody, — 

With cottage strains to cope. 
And this the theme — a mother's praise 
Inspires and animates her lays. 

That modest, unassuming worth, 
Which sheds around the joys of earth> 

The wife's, the mother's charms : 
Example to our dawning race, 
Of every virtue, every grace, 

The purest bosom warms, — 
Like the sweet flow'r, though past its bloom, 
It scatters wide its rich perfume. 

From infant years to this glad hour, 

How hast Thou bless' d us, Heavenly Pow'r, 

With such a watchful friend ! 
Our joys she has shared, our sorrows soothed, 
Our devious path with roses strewed, 

And blessings without end. 
O may she long those blessings share, 
And gild this morn on many a year ! 
Bellefield, Jan. 1, 1817. 

Among the partakers in these rural festivities, and one 
whose presence always gave them a peculiar interest, was 
the venerable Mrs. Barton ; a lady whose warm attach- 
ment to Dr. and Mrs. Bard, through a long life, demands 



233 

some passing record, — a tribute now doubly due, since 
the shock of their united death seemed to break the last 
feeble thread which detained her in this state of morta- 
lity : and within a few days she followed them at the ad- 
vanced age of 90 years, neither overcome by disease, nor 
broken down by infirmity. Mrs. Barton was aunt both to 
Dr. and Mrs. Bard, being sister to Dr. De Normandie, 
before spoken of, and widow to the friend and brother-in- 
law of our eminent countryman, David Rittenhouse. So 
highly was she esteemed, and so warmly beloved, that 
Mrs. Bard made her aunt's residence with her a previous 
requisite to consenting to remove to the country. From 
the period of that event she continued to reside with 
them ; not only aiding, by her counsel and skill, the va- 
ried employments of a country life ; but enlivening, by her 
good sense and cheerfulness, the monotony that after a 
time is apt to attend it. 

At the period to which the preceding poetry refers, she 
had attained the age of eighty-seven years. — Independent 
in her occupations, actively and benevolently employed^ 
participating in all family festivities, and with a tremu- 
lous, though sweet, voice, (which, in youth, had gained 
her the title of the "American nightingale,") leading, 
at the supper table, a united chorus, in which the voices 
of four successive generations emulously contended. As 
a trait of superior character, of a mind that could rise 
above the besetting weakness of old age, I subjoin the 
following letter, conveying to a niece one half her for- 
tune. 

30 



231 



Hyde Park, Dec. 9, 1803. 
Dear Sally, 

I beg your acceptance of the enclosed bond, 
dated on the day which closed the allotted time of man's 
life, three score years and ten; and, although I have a 
proper sense of the great blessings I enjoy of health and 
understanding, yet I am sensible of my own infirmities, 
and would not leave to chance, or the caprice of old age, 
the power of altering my purpose of seeing you, before I 
die, in some measure independent. I beg you will make 
me no answer to this letter, as it is far greater happiness 
to me, that I have this little to give, than it can possibly 
be for you to receive it; and I am well convinced, from 
your temper and disposition, that, were the case reversed, 
you would have the same sentiments. To make you per- 
fectly easy, be assured, I am not the poorer by parting 
with this sum : it is nothing more than shifting it from one 
hand to the other; and I still retain more than double the 
income I ever spent upon myself, at any period of my life. 
God bless you, my dear niece ; and that you may long 
live to enjoy every happiness this frail life can bestow, is 
the sincere prayer of 

Your affectionate aunt^ 

S. BARTON. 

This rare union of qualities, alike estimable and amia- 
ble, produced their corresponding affections, respect and 
love, in all around her ; which, added to the natural emo- 
tion excited by so advanced an age, amounted, in the 



235 

younger members of the family, to a feeling almost of ve- 
neration. 

Among other remembrances placed in my hands, of 
this happy family society, and which are now valued, like 
other relics, not for what they are, but for what they re- 
call, is the following little address to Mrs. Barton, on the 
celebration of her eighty-eighth birth day. 

When years to worth, to worth when wisdom's joined, 
Instinctive springs the homage of the mind : 
But when religion, from her throne above, 
Crowns that assemblage in a friend we love, 
Gilding life's close with faith's unfading ray, 
Like the calm sunset of a summer's day ; 
' Tis then we think, that Heaven in kindness shows 
How age may sink, mid blessings, to repose ; 
How short the passage that to faith is given, 
From bliss on earth, to higher bliss in heaven. 
Long may that bliss be thine, dear aunt, to see 
Encircling friends, who love and copy thee : 
Learning from thee to blend, in gentle truth, 
The voice of wisdom with the charm of youth ; 
And, when thy spirit bursts from bonds of clay, 
To seek the sunshine of a brighter day, 
Then may they learn how smooth the bed of death 
To a calm conscience, and a Christian faith. 
December 8, 1818. 

It may not be uninteresting to add, that the pious wish, 
with which the above closes, was realized in no common 
degree ; gently sinking in the possession of all her faculties, 
and for two days hourly expecting dissolution, her time 
and thoughts were occupied with making it a lesson to 
her young relatives, who crowded around her dying bed ; 
giving to most of them some appropriate memorial of the 



236 

scene before them, — some prayer, or form of devotion, 
(of which her desk contained many, either composed, or 
transcribed, by herself,) and receiving with them the last 
consolations of religion, — to them the commencement, to 
her the termination, of the Christian race. 

The last winter of Dr. Bard's life was passed by him 
in more than usual enjoyment. — Preceded by a long and 
satisfactory visit to his daughter in town, it rolled rapidly 
by in his usual interchange of study and amusement. 
Engaged in preparing an enlarged edition of his chief 
medical work, he found no time to hang heavy on his 
hands ; and it was difficult to say, from which of his varied 
employments, whether of labour, or amusement, he de- 
rived the greatest pleasure. 

A few extracts from his domestic letters will show how 
brightly that flame continued to burn, which was so soon 
about to be extinguished. 

Hyde Park, Christmas, 1820. 

My Dear Son, 

It is a very great additional source of 
joy, to have reason for it from our own condition, at this 
happy season, when all mankind are called upon to re- 
joice, — such is my present situation. I walk, ride, and 
amuse myself, out of doors with my green-house, and in 
doors, with my little transparent orrery ; to which I am 
contemplating some additions and familiar illustrations. 

My green-house and flower-stands afford me considera- 
ble amusement. The plants flourish exceedingly : I spent 
two hours among them yesterday, and shall do so occa- 
sionally through the winter. There, if my feelings are not 



237 

wound up quite so high as some of my friends describe 
theirs to be, by Kean's Lear, or Richard, I am not, like 
them, disgusted by the other parts of the drama ; but every 
plant, from the royal orange and myrtle to the humble 
crocus, in fragrance, grace, and beauty, perform their 
part to admiration : and although they excite no passion 
of fear or mirth, of love or alarm, yet they do better, — 
they calm all my passions, sooth disappointment, and even 
mitigate the feelings of sorrow." 

In one of the latest letters he wrote, after many direc- 
tions relative to obtaining books and information on some 
subject of his inquiries, he proceeds : — 

" I have already mentioned my good health ; and, thank 
God, have passed the winter free from pain ; and now 
begin to enjoy the spring by riding on horseback, and 
amusing myself in my garden ; but I do both with caution. 
When it is fair over head, but damp under foot, I ride my 
poney into the garden to give my directions, and to see 
my plants bursting into life, in which I take very great 
delight. 

I have several beautiful and rare plants coming for- 
ward ; and I watch their progress with an interest which, 
by many people, would be thought trifling in a man of 
four score : but I appease my conscience by the inno- 
cency of the pursuit, and my inability for such as are 
more active." 

In another he adds : — 

"You see I begin to look forward to future days of 
enjoyment. I am at least determined that none shall 



238 

pass which may be permitted me, without some effort to 
render them useful to myself, or others." 

Of this noble resolution a striking proof was afforded 
in his almost latest employment, which consisted in pre- 
paring for a distant and destitute relation the seeds ne- 
cessary for a practical horticulturist, with ample direc- 
tions for their management, drawn principally from his 
own experience. This proof of the untired energy of a 
benevolent mind had hardly reached its destination, ere 
its author was no more. 

Nor was the tranquillity he displayed dependant on ex- 
emption from sorrow and disappointment. It was, at this 
period, tried with both : the death of a young, but favou- 
rite grandson, proved his heart with affliction. — Where he 
found his consolation is best shown in his own language. 

" It is a hard lesson, and one, I cannot believe, required 
of us, to receive pain and sorrow at our Father's hand 
with the same feelings we do joy and blessing, — submit 
without murmuring we can, and even acknowledge the 
goodness and mercy of the hand which chastises us : yet, 
we cannot but feel the stripes ; and, indeed, if we did not, 
they would be no chastisement. Still I yield him up with 
the composure of Christian resignation to the will of our 
Merciful Father; who not only knows, but determines 
what is best for those who put their trust in him." 

How he bore those shocks, which misfortune sometimes 
inflicts upon the happiest, may be judged of from the 
following letter. 

a Yes, my dear M'V., you are perfectly right ; misfor- 
tune properly improved, becomes the source of our great- 



239 

est blessings. If it serve to moderate our desires, at the 
same time that it rouses us to greater exertion ; if it con- 
trol our unruly passions, and strengthen our virtuous in- 
clinations ; above all, if it excite in our hearts true reli- 
gion, and confirm our humble dependence upon the mer- 
cy and goodness of God ; then we may say, with truth, 
6 it is good for us to have been afflicted.' 

" Whenever I pursue this train of thought I gain strength, 
and become ashamed and repentant that I suffer the com- 
paratively slight reverses which we have met with, for 
a moment to damp me. I buckle on my armour, and 
prepare for the conflict with renewed vigour and fresh 
hopes. 

" Something like despondence, I confess, will now and 
then assail me ; and, in spite of my better convictions, the 
prospect of difficulties, now when my strength begins to 
fail me, brings a load upon my spirits which I find it diffi- 
cult to shake off; until again an appeal to that Good Be- 
ing, who has so long conducted me forward in a prosperous 
and happy career, calms my troubled mind, and again I 
feel able to submit to whatever his wisdom may direct." 

On another occasion he answers some expressions of 
regret in these words : " from such causes we must ex- 
pect both loss and disappointment; but such loss and dis- 
appointment as arise from no fault of our own, we must 
learn to bear with resignation ; and instead of wasting our 
time in vain regrets, learn to make use of it to retrieve 
all we have lost." * * * * * * 

" What a triumph does it afford to the profligate, to find 
a man of his reputation so frail ; and what a lesson to us 
all not to be over-confident in our own strength. Such ar> 



240 

event shakes our confidence in human nature, and proves 
the wisdom and necessity of that admirable prayer which 
teaches us to beg that we be not led into tempation." 

Of such old age, which has numbered out its days, but 
not its usefulness, or its enjoyments, the contemplation 
is too pleasing to be willingly relinquished. As the eye 
of the traveller is refreshed with a spot of verdure rising 
out of the sands of the desert, so is that of the philan- 
thropist with such a green old age, giving relief to the 
monotonous and barren scenery of the infirmities and de- 
cay of life : and as the traveller draws comforting argu- 
ment from it, in favour of the natural, so may we of the 
moral government of God : both show his power and mer- 
cy extended over all his works, and through every period 
of life ; the powers of vegetation, dormant, but not ex- 
tinct, even in the desert ; and those of the intellect, op- 
pressed, but not extinguished, under the ruins of its falling 
tabernacle. 

It is, therefore, alike painful and pleasing to record its 
conclusion : painful to those who suffer by the privation ; 
but pleasing to all who take a pride in the honours of hu- 
manity, in seeing it pass, unbroken by sorrow, in the ripe- 
ness of its age, in the fulness of its powers, from this 
stage of its infant probation, to its second period of ad- 
vancement in knowledge and virtue. 

In the month of May, 1821, while preparing for their 
annual spring visit to the city, Mrs. Bard was attack- 
ed with a pleuritic affection; which, after a few days, 
gave evidence of a fatal termination. Dr. Bard, though 
labouring under a similar attack, would not be separated 
from her ; but continued to be, as formerly, her compa- 



241 

nion, nurse, and physician. Such a long and affectionate 
union as theirs had been, had early excited the wish, the 
wish the prayer, and the prayer the expectation, that in 
death they were not to be divided. What was thus both 
wished for, and expected, had become, it seems, the sub- 
ject of their sleeping thoughts ; and a remarkable dream 
of Mrs. Bard's to this effect, was now remembered, and 
repeated by her husband, with feelings not of supersti- 
tious, but pleasing anticipation. 

The last effort of his pen was to give comfort to those 
who were absent. On Sunday, 20th inst., three days be- 
fore his own death, he wrote with a trembling hand, a 
consolatory letter to his friends in New- York, who were 
anxiously awaiting his arrival. 

This letter, which conveyed to his daughter the first in- 
timation of danger, brought her to her paternal home a 
few hours too late to receive a mother's blessing ; but in 
time to spend a few short ones of affectionate intercourse 
with her dying father. It was passed in calmness by both : 
indeed, there was no room for sorrow in such a tran- 
quil, peaceful departure. His calm, but affectionate in- 
quiries about absent friends, his rational directions as to 
future arrangements, and his freedom from all perturba- 
tion of spirit, were so foreign from the common concep- 
tion of departing humanity, that the feelings could not 
realize it, — there were in it no images of grief from which 
imagination might draw her pattern. 

Under these circumstances, not of stoical, but Christian 
composure, he sunk to rest, at 5 o'clock in the morning of 
the 24th May, in the eightieth year of his age, twenty-four 

31 



242 

hours after the death of his wife! — a common grave re- 
ceived their remains. 

Their affectionate relative, Mrs. Barton, sunk under 
the bereavement, and, within a few days, joined them in 
the land of rest. 

As a summary of Dr. Bard's character, I close with the 
concluding sentence of a communication made to me by 
one who best knew his worth, and most deeply felt his loss. 

" Of my father's general character," says he, " of his 
candour, of the purity of his intentions, of his integrity, 
of the tenderness of his feelings, of his polite and affec- 
tionate manners, of his ardour in every honourable and 
virtuous pursuit, of his calm, but profound religious feel- 
ings, of his domestic virtues, of his cheerful temper, of 
his love to mankind, I dare not speak, — the recollection of 
them is deeply engraven on my heart, and but too fresh 
in my memory." 



Among the many testimonials of individual respect and 
condolence which this event called forth, I shall select 
but the following, as exhibiting the estimation in which 
Dr. Bard was held by an eminent foreigner and philan- 
thropist. 

Washington, June 2, 1821. 
Monsieur, 

Les Journaux m'annoncent la perte doulou- 
reuse que vous venez de faire, et je ne veux point differer 



243 

a vous exprimer toute la parte que je prends a un evene- 
ment qui n'est pas seulement le deuil de votre famille. 
mais celui de tous les amis de Phumanite. 

Agreez done, je vous prie monsieur, mes complimens 
de condoleance, ils sont aussi sinceres que Pestime pro- 
fonde avec laquelle pai Phonneur d'etre, 
Monsieur, &c. &c. 

HYDE DE NEUVILLE. 
a Mr. W. Bard, 

The following minute is taken from a meeting of the 
governors of the New- York Hospital. 

June 5, 1821. 

" The governors receive, with unfeigned regret, the ac- 
count of the decease of their late fellow member of this 
Corporation, Dr. Samuel Bard. 

" It is due to the memory of that eminent physician and 
philanthropist, to state, that by means of his benevolent 
exertions, in the year 1769, setting forth, in a public dis- 
course, the benefits to be derived from the establishment 
of an hospital in the city, the present institution was ori- 
ginally founded. That for a number of years, amidst the 
arduous avocations of an extensive private practice, he 
performed, with unceasing fidelity and punctuality, the 
duties of a physician to this establishment, and was the 
means, under Providence, of extending its usefulness, and 
of elevating its character, not only as an asylum for the 
sick poor, but as an important means of promoting medi- 
cal education in this city. The signal services rendered 
by Dr. Bard to this community in general, and to this 
institution in particular ; the virtuous and religious cha- 



244 

racter for which he was uniformly distinguished ; the zea- 
lous devotion to the interests of humanity which he ever 
manifested as a citizen, as well as in discharge of the du- 
ties of his profession ; render it, in a peculiar manner, be- 
coming this Board to express their high sense of his great 
worth, his professional merit and services, and the bene- 
fits he has conferred upon his native city and country." 

CONCLUSION. 

Although in the narrative now concluded, affection may 
appear, in some instances, to have dictated the language, 
the author is not aware that in any it has exaggerated 
the sentiment. He believes it will meet the recollection 
of those who best knew the subject of it. Indeed, it was 
not easy to know Dr. Bard intimately, without loving and 
reverencing him ; so that to exclude affection from giving 
the picture, is to exclude that knowledge which is neces- 
sary to secure resemblance. 

Of his public conduct, and professional character, the 
author believes he has spoken with due deference to the 
opinion of those who may be better judges. — Of that which 
has been the great aim of the memoir, the display of pri- 
vate character, he has spoken confidently, because he 
knew intimately ; and in the varied relations of social and 
domestic life, having proposed him as a model to himself, 
he is not afraid to hold him up to others as an example 
worthy of imitation. 



FINIS.. 









V 



SOCIETY, 



LB Mr '32 








/',vHL 






